
Class 
Book. 



W 



DEC *l* 






ELEMENTS 

OF , y 

GENERAL HISTORY, 

ANCIENT AND MODERN. 

BY ALEXANDER FRASER TYTLER, F. R. S. E. 

Professor of History in the University of Edinburgh. 
TO WHICH IS ADDED, A SUCCINCT 

HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, 

BY AN AMERICAN GENTLEMAN. 

SUPPLYING IMPORTANT OMISSIONS, BRINGING DOWN THE NARRATION 
OP EVENTS TO THE PRESENT TIME, AND CORRECTING MANY PAS- 
SAGES RELATING TO THE HISTORY OP THIS COUNTRY. 

WITH AN IMPROVED 

TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY; 

A COMPARATIVE VIEW OF 

ANCIENT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY; 

AND 

QUESTIONS ON EACH SECTION. 

ADAPTED FOR THE USE OP SCHOOLS AND ACADEMIES, 
BY AN EXPERIENCED TEACHER. 

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIFTH EDITION. 



CONCORD, N. H. 
PUBLISHED BY JOHN F. BROWN. 



1844. 



PREFACE. 



THE following work contains the Outlines of a Course of Lectt&es on 
General History, delivered for many years in the University of Edin- 
burgh, and received with a portion of the public approbation amply 
sufficient to compensate the labours of the author. He began to compose 
these Elements principally with the view of furnishing an aid to students 
attending his Lectures ; but soon conceived, that, by giving a little more 
amplitude to their composition, he might render the work of more general 
utility. As now given to the public, he would willingly flatter himself 
that it may be not only serviceable to youth, in furnishing a regular plan 
for the prosecution of this important study, but useful even to those who 
have acquired a competent knowledge of general history from the peru- 
sal of the works of detached historians, and who wish to methodize that 
knowledge, or even to refresh their memory on material facts and the 
order of events. 

In the composition of these Elements the author has endeavoured to 
unite with the detail of facts, so much of reflection as to aid the mind 
in the formation of rational views of the causes and consequences of 
events, as well as of the policy of the actors ; but he has anxiously 
guarded against that speculative refinement which has sometimes entered 
into works of this nature. Such works profess to exhibit the philosophy 
or the spirit of history, but are more adapted to display the writer's 
ingenuity as a theorist, or talents as a rhetorician^ than to instruct the 
reader in the more useful knowledge of historical facts. 

As the progress of the human mind forms a capital object in the study 
of history, the state of the arts and sciences, the religion, laws, govern- 
ment, and manners of nations, are material parts, even in an elementary 
work of this nature. The history of literature is a most important arti- 
cle in this study. The author ha3 therefore endeavoured to give to each ot 
these topics its due share of attention ; and in that view they are sepa- 
rately treated, in distinct sections, at particular periods of time. 

ALEX. FRASER TYTLL1L 

Edinburgh, April, 1801. 



Transfer 
U. S.Nava? Academ* 
Aug. 26 1932 



CONTENTS. 



^•#♦4*- 



INTRODUCTION. 

Pftfe. 

Advantages arising from the Study of History, and more particularly 
from prosecuting it according to a regular Plan 11 

PlAH Of THE COURSE 18 



PART FIRST 

ANCIENT HISTORY. 



Sect. 1. Earliest authentic Accounts of the History of the World 17 
Sect. 2. Considerations on the Nature of the First Governments, and 

on the Laws, Customs, Arts, and Sciences of the first 

Ages 18 

Sect. 3. Of the Egyptians 20 

Sect. 4. Of the Phoenicians 22 

Sect. 5. The History of Greece - ih. 
Sect. 6. Reflections on the first and rudest Periods of the Grecian 

History 23 

Sect. 7. Early period of Grecian History. Argonautic Expedition. 

Wars of Thebes and Troy ..... 24 

Sect. 8. Establishment of the Greek Colonies ... 25 

Sect. 9. The Republic of Sparta 26 

Sect. 10. The Republic of Athens 26 

Sect. 11. Of the state of the Persian Empire, and its History down to 

the War with Greece ...... 29 

Sect. 12. The War between Greece and Persia - 31 

Sect. 13. Age of Pericles - - 33 

Sect. 14. The Republic of Thebes 35 

Sect. 15. Philip of Macedon ..... . ib. 

Sect. 16. Alexander the Great 36 

Sect. 17. Successors of Alexander 38 

Sect. 18. Fall and conquest of Greece 39 
Sect 19. Political Reflections arising from the History of the States of 

Greece - - « 40 

Sect 20 State of the Arts in Greece 41 

Sect. 21 Of the Greek Poets 43 

Sect. 22. Of the Greek Historians 45 

Sect. 23. Of the Greek Philosophers 47 

Sect. 24 The History of Rome - 49 

Reflections on the Government and State of Rome under the 

Kings - 0| 

A2 



" CONTENTS. 

Page- 
Sect. 25. Rome under the Consuls ------ 53 

Sect. 26. The Law ofVolero ----.. 56 

Sect, 27. The Decern virate -------- 57 

Sect. 28. Increase of popular Power 58 

Sect. 29. Conquest of .Italy by the Romans 59 

Sect. 30. History of Carthage 60 

Sect. 31. History of Sicily - 61 

Sect. 32. The Punic Wars 62 

Sect. 33. The Gracchi, and the Corruption of the Commonwealth 64 
Sect 34. Progress of the Civil Wars. Second Triumvirate, and fall of 

the Republic -- 67 

Sect. 35. Considerations on such particulars as mark the Genius and 

national Character of the Romans ... - 70 

System of Roman Education - ib. 

Sect. 36. Of the Progress of Literature among the Romans - 71 

Sect. 37. State of Philosophy among the Romans - 75 

Sect. 38. Of the Public and Private Manners of the Romans - - 76 

Sect. 39. Of the Art of War among the Romans - - 77 
Sect. 40. Reflections arising from a View of the Roman History dnring 

the Commonwealth ------ 79 

Sect. 41. Rome under the Emperors ------ 81 

Sect. 42. The same subject continued - 84 

Sect. 43. Age of the Antonines, &c. 87 

Sect. 44. State of the Roman Empire at the time of Constantine. His 

Successors 90 

Sect. 45. Progress of the Christian Religion from its Institution to the 

Extinction of Paganism in the Reign of Theodosius - 93 

Sect. 46. Extinction of the Roman Empire in the West - - 95 
Sect. 47. Of the Origin, Manners, and Character of the Gothic Nations 

before their establishment in the Roman Empire - 97 
Sect. 48. Of the Manners, Laws, and Government of the Gothic Na- 
tions after their establishment in the Roman Empire 99 
Sect. 49. Method of studying Ancient History ... - IQ2 



PART SECOND. 

MODERN HISTORY. 



Sect. 1. Of Arabia and the Empire of the Saracens - - 106 

Sect. 2. Monarchy of the Franks - - - 108 

Sect. 3. Reflections on the State of France during the Merovingian 

race of its Kings 109 

Sect. 4. Charlemagne. The new Empire of the West - - 112 
Sect. 5. Manners, Governments, and Customs of the Age of Char- 
lemagne 113 

Sect. 6. Retrospective View of the Affairs of the Church before the 

Age of Charlemagne ------ 115 

Sect. 7. Empire of the West under the Successors of Charlemagne 116 
Sect. 8. Empire of the East during the Eighth and Ninth Centuries 118 
Sect. 9. State of the Church in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries - 1.19 
Sect 10. Of the Saracens in the Eighth and Ninth Centuries - 120 

Sect. 11. Empire of the West and Italy in the Tenth and Eleventh 

Centuries 121 

Sect. 12. History of Britain from its earliest Period down to the Nor- 
man Conquest 123 

Sec?. 13 Of the Government, Laws and Manners of the Angk>-Sax©»« 127 



CONTENTS. ? 

Page. 
fleet. 14. State of Europe during the Tenth, Eleventh, and TwelAh 

Centuries 128 

Sect. 15. History of England in the Eleventh, Twelfth, and part of the 

Thirteenth Centuries 130 

Sect. 16. State of Germany and Italy in the Thirteenth Century 134 

Sect. 17. The Crusades or Holy Wars 135 

Sect. 18. Of Chivalry and Romance 138 

Sect. 19. State of Europe in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries 140 

Sect. 20. Revolution in Switzerland - 141 

Sect. 21. State of Europe continued in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and 

part of the Fifteenth Centuries - - 142 

Sect. 22. History of England in the Thirteenth Century - - 143 

Sect. 23. History of Scotland from the Eleventh to the Fourteenth 

Century - 144 

Sect. 24. History of England in the Fourteenth Century - - 146 

Sect. 25. England and France in the Fifteenth Century. State of 

Manners - 147 

Sect. 26. Decline and Fall of the Greek Empire ... 149 

Sect. 27. Government and Policy of the Turkish Empire - - 150 

Sect. 28. France and Italy in the End of the Fifteenth Century 151 

Sect. 29. History of Spain in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 152 
Sect. 30. France, Spain, and Italy, in the End of the Fifteenth and Be- 
ginning of the Sixteenth Century .... 153 
Sect. 31. History of England from the Middle of the Fifteenth to the 
Beginning of the Sixteenth Century. Civil Wars of York 

and Lancaster 154 

Sect. 32. History of Scotland from the Middle of the Fourteenth Cen- 
tury to the End of the Reign of James V. - - 156 
Sect. 33. Of the Ancient Constitution of the Scottish Government 159 
Sect. 34. A view of the Progress of Literature and Science in Europe 
from the Revival of Letters to the End of the Fifteenth 

Century ... 160 

Sect. 35. View of the Progress of Commerce in Europe before the 

Portuguese Discoveries 163 

Sect 36. Discoveries of the Portuguese in the Fifteenth Century, and 

their effects on the Commerce of Europe ... 165 
Sect. 37. Germany and France in the Reigns of Charles V. and Fran- 
cis I. 167 

Sect. 38. Observations on the Constitution of the German Empire 170 

Sect. 39. Of the Reformation in Germany and Switzerland, and the 

Revolution in Denmark and Sweden .... 171 
Sect. 40. Of the Reformation in England under Henry VIII. and hi 3 

Successors 174 

Sect. 41. Of the Discovery and Conquest of America by the Spaniards 175 
Sect. 42. Possessions of the other European Nations in America 177 

Sect. 43 Of the State of the Fine Arts in Europe, in the Age of Leo X. 180 
Sect. 44. Of the Ottoman Power in the Sixteenth Century - - 182 
Sect. 45. State of Persia, and the other Asiatic Kingdoms, in the Six- 
teenth and Seventeenth Centuries - . . „ 183 

Sect. 46. History of. India 184 

Sect. 47. Ancient State of India ; Manners, Laws, Arts, and Sciences, 

and Religion, of the Hindoos ..... 186 

Sect. 48. Of China and Japan 188 

Sect. 49. Of the Antiquity of the Empire of China. State of the Arts 

and Sciences, Manners, Government, Laws - - 189 

Sect. 50. Mr. Bailly ; s Theory of the Origin of the Sciences among the 

Nations of Asia ....... 192 

Sect. 51 Reign of Philip II. of Spam. Revolution of the Netherlands, 

and Establishment of the Republic of Holland - 194 

Sect 52 Of the Constitution and Government of the United Provinces 196 
Sect. 53 Reign of Philip II. continued - 197 



8 CONTENTS. 

Sect. 64. State of France in the End of the Sixteenth Century, under 
Henry II., Francis II., Charles IX., Henry III., and 

Henry IV. 197 

Sect 55. History of England and Scotland in the Reigns of Elizabeth 

and'Mary Queen of Scots 199 

Sect 56. History of Great Britain in the Reigns of James I. and 

Charles I. - -...,- 203 

Sect. 57. The Commonwealth of England ..... 207 
Sect. 58. Reigns of Charles II. and James II. - - - 209 

Sect. 59. On the British Constitution 211 

Sect. 60 Ofthe Public Revenue of Great Britain - - 214 

Sect 61 History of France under Lewis XIII. ... 216 

Sect 62. Spain under Philip III. and Philip IV. Constitution of Por- 
tugal and Spain -------- 217 

Sect. 63. Affairs of Germany from the Abdication of Charles V. to the 

Peace of Westphalia ... - . 218 

Sect. 64. France under Lewis XIV. - - 219 

Sect. 65. Of the Constitution of France under the Monarchy - 223 

Sect 66. Of Peter the Great, Czar of Muscovy, and Charles XII., 

King of Sweden 224 

8ect. 67. A View of the Progress of Science and Literature in Europe, 
from the End ofthe Fifteenth to the End of the Sixteenth 
Century -- 227 



APPENDIX. 

THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 

Sect. 1. A General View of the History of Mankind in the Primeval 

Ages 231 

Sect. 2. Summary View of Jewish History - 232 

Sect. 3. The Antiquity of the Scriptures ----- 233 

Sect. 4. The Subject of the Books, and Characters ofthe Writers 235 

Sect. 5. Of the Antediluvian World 240 

Sect. 6. First Ages after the Deluge ------ 241 

Sect. 7. Ofthe Jews -----.._ ft 

Sect. 8. The History of the Hebrews during the Government of the 

Judges - 244 

Sect. 9. Retrospect ofthe Government ofthe Hebrews - - 245 

Sect. 10. Regal Government of the Hebrews - 246 

Sect 11. Restoration ofthe Jews to their Liberty and Country - 249 

Sect. 12. The State of Learning and Commerce amon'g the Jews 252 

Conclusion 253 

PART THIRD. 

MODERN HISTORY 

Sect. 1. France, from the death of Lewis XIV., 1,715, to the P«ace ef 

Vienna, 1,738 257 



CONTENTS. 9 

Pige. 

Sect 9. England, from the Accession of the House of Hanover, 

1,714, to the end of the Reign of George the First, 1,727 262 

Sect. 3L Austria, (and Germany,) from the Peace of Rastadt, 1,714, 

tothePeaceof Aix-la-Chapelle, 1,748 268 

Sect 4. England, from the Accession of George II. to the Throne, 

1,727, to his death, 1,760 273 

Sect 5. State of Europe at the Conclusion of the Peace of Aix-la- 
Chapelle, 1,748 278 

Sect 6. Of the Seven Years' War, 1,755—1,762 281 

Sect. 7. From the Accession of George III., 1,760, to the Commence- 
ment of the Disputes with America, 1,764 - 288 

Sect 8. Disputes between Great Britain and her American Colonies, 

1,764—1,783 291 

Sect 9. France, from the Peace of Paris, 1,763, to the Opening of the 

Assembly of the States General, 1,789 - - - 297 

Sect 10. Austria, from the conclusion of the Seven Years' War, to the 

death of Maria Theresa, 1,763— 1,780 - 307 

Sect 11. Reigns of Joseph II., Leopold II., &c, from 1,765 to 1,800 309 

Sect 12. France, from the Opening of the Assembly of the States 

General, 1,789, to the deaths of the King and Queen, 1,793 316 

Sect 13. Great Britain, from the conclusion of the American War, 

1,783, to the Peace of Amiens, 1,802 - 322 

Sect. 14. France, from the death of the King and Queen, and Over- 
throw of the Girondist or Brissotine Party, 1,793, to the 
Establishment of the Directory, 1,795 333 

Sect. 15. France, from the Establishment of the Directory 1,795, to the 

Peace of Amiens 337 

Sect. 16. France, from the Peace of Amiens to the Treaty of Tilsit, 

1,807 347 

Sect. 17. Spam and Portugal, from 1,788 to 1,814 - - - 353 

Sect. 18. France, from the Peace of Tilsit, to the Abdication of Na- 
poleon. 1,814 359 

Sect. 19. Poland, from the Commencement of the Eighteenth Century, 

to the Treaty of Vienna, 1,815 .... 363 

Sect. 20. Great Britain, from the Peace of Amiens, 1,802, to the death 

of George III., 1,820 369 

Sect. 21. France, from the Entrance of the Allies into Paris, March, 
1,814, to the final Evacuation of it by the Foreign Troops, 
1,818 375 

Sect. 22. Northern States of Europe, from the Close of the Seven- 
teenth Century 379 

Sect 23. Southern States of Europe, from the Close of the Seventeenth 

Century 387 

Sect. 24. Of India, or Hindoostan 391 

State of Arts, Sciences, Religion, Laws, Government, Ac. - - 39S 

Botany ... 402 

Electricity 405 

Mineralogy and Geology ........ 407 

Geography - 409 

Discoveries and Inventions .... ... 419 

Religion -. 420 

History, Polite Literature, Fine Arts, eVc. -..-..- 423 

Treaty of Vienna, 1,815 --...- 423 

3 



10 CONTENTS. 

PART FOURTH. 

THE UNITED STATES. 

Pace 

Sect. 1. Discovery of America 424 

Sect. 2. Discoveries by the English. Settlement of Virginia. - 427 

Sect. 3. Settlement of Massachusetts, Rhode-Island, Connecticut, New- 
Hampshire, Maine. Maryland, North and South Carolina, 
New- York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and 
Georgia - - - 431 

Sect. 4. War with France, and Conquest of Canada. Disputes with 

Great Britain, and War of the Revolution ... 438 
Sect. 5. Establishment of the State and National Governments. Wars 

with Tripoli and the Indians, &c. - 448 

Sect 6. War with Great Britain, &c. ..... 451 



A Table of Chronology 460 

Comparative view of Ancient and Modern Geography - 499 



INTRODUCTION. 



-*►•••««*- 



1. THE value of any science is to be estimated according to its tenden- 
cy to promote improvement, either in private virtue, or in those qualities 
which render man extensively useful in society. Some objects of pursuit 
have a secondary utility ; in furnishing rational amusement, which, re- 
lieving the mind at intervals from the fatigue of serious occupation, in- 
vigorates and prepares it for fresh exertion. It is the perfection of any 
■cience, to unite these advantages, to promote the advancement of public 
and private virtue, and to supply such a degree of amusement, as to super- 
sede the necessity of recurring to frivolous pursuits for the sake of relaxa- 
tion. Under this description falls the science of history. 

2. History, says Dionysius of Halicarnassus, is " philosophy teaching 
by examples." The superior efficacy of example to precept is universally 
acknowledged. All the laws of morality and rules of conduct are veri- 
fied by experience, and are constantly submitted to its test and examina- 
tion. History, which adds to our own experience an immense treasure of 
the experience of others, furnishes innumerable proofs, by which we may 
cerify all the precepts of morality and of prudence. 

3. History, beside its general advantages, has a distinct species of util- 
Jty to different men, according to their several ranks in society, and occu- 
pations in life. 

4. In this country it is an indispensable duty of every man of liberal 
birth, to be acquainted, in a certain degree, with the science of politics ; 
*nd history is the school of politics. It opens to us the springs of human 
Affairs ; the causes of the rise, grandeur, revolutions, and fall of empires ; 
it points out the reciprocal influence of government and of national man- 
ners ; it dissipates prejudices, nourishes the love of our country, and di- 
rects to the best means of its improvement ; it illustrates equally the bless- 
ings of political union, and the miseries of faction ; the danger, on one 
hand, of anarchy, and, on the other, the debasing influence of despotic 
power. 

5. It is necessary that the study of history should be prosecuted accord- 
ing to a regular plan ; for this science, more perhaps than any other, is 
liable to perversion from its proper use. With some it is no better than 
an idle amusement ; with others it is the food of vanity ; with a third 
class it fosters the prejudices of party, and leads to political bigotry. It 
is dangerous for those who, even with the best intentions, seek for histori- 
cal knowledge, to pursue the study without a guide ; for no science has 
been so little methodized. The sources of prejudice are infinite ; and the 
mind of youth should not be left undirected amidst the erring, the partial, 
and contradictory representations of historians. Besides the importance of 
being able to discriminate truth from falsehood, the attention ought to be 
directed only to useful truths. Much danger arises from the perusal ol 
memoirs, collections of anecdotes, &c. ; for many of those works exhibit 
the most depraved pictures, weaken our confidence in virtue, and present 
the most unfavourable views of human nature. 



U INTRODUCTION. 

6. There are many difficulties which attend the attempt of forming * 
proper plan of study, and giving: an instructive view of general history. 
Utility is to be reconciled with amusement, prejudices are to be encoun- 
tered, variety of taste to be consulted, political opinions balanced, judg- 
ment and decision exercised on topics keenly controverted. The proposer 
of such a plan ought therefore to be possessed equally of firmness of mind 
and moderation of sentiment. In many cases he must abandon popularity 
for the calm approbation of his own conscience. Disregarding every 
partial and inferior consideration, he must direct his view solely to 
tre proper end of all education, the forming of good men, and of good 
citizens. 

7. The object and ^naral purpose of the following course, is to exhibit a 
progressiva view of the state of mankind, from the earliest ages of which 
we have any authentic accounts, down to the close of the 17th century ; 
to delineate the origin of states and of empires, the great outlines of their 
history, the revolutions which they have undergone, the causes which 
have contributed to their rise and grandeur, and operated to their decline 
and extinction. For these purposes it is necessary to bestow particular 
attention on the manners of nations, their laws, the nature of their govern- 
ments, their religion, their intellectual improvements, and their progress 
in the arts and sciences. 



PLAN OF THE COURSE. 

T WO opposite methods have been followed in giving- academical lecture* 
on the study of history : one exhibiting a strict chronological arrangement 
of events, upon the plan of Turselline's Epitome ; the other, a series of dis- 
quisitions on the various heads or titles of public law, and the doctrines of 
politics ; illustrated by examples drawn from ancient and modern history. 
Objections occur to both these methods : the former furnishes only a dry 
chronicle of events, which nothing connects together but the order of 
time ; the latter is insufficient for the most important purposes of history, 
the tracing f events to their causes, the detection of the springs of hu- 
man actions, the display of the progress of society, and of the rise and fall 
of states and empires ; finally, by confining history to the exemplification 
of the doctrines of politics, we lose its effect as a school of morals. 

In the following lectures we hold a middle course between these ex- 
tremes, and endeavour, by remedying the imperfection of each, to unite, 
if possible, the advantages of both. ^ 

While so much regard is had to chronology as is necessary for showing 
the progress of mankind in society, and communicating just ideas of the 
state ofthe world in all the different ages to which authentic history ex- 
tends, we shall, in the delineation of the rise and fall of empires and their 
revolutions, pay more attention to the connexion of subject than that of 

In' this view we must reject the comman method of arranging general 
history according to epochs, or aeras 

When the world is viewed at any period either of ancient or of modern 
history, we generally observe one nation or empire predominant, to whom 
all the rest bear, as it were, an under part, and to whose history we find 
that the principal events in the annals of other nations may be referred 
from some natural connexion. This predominant empire or state it is pro- 
posed to exhibit to view as the principal object, whose history therefore 
is to be more fully delineated, while the rest are only incidentally touch- 
ed when they come to have a natural connexion with the principal. 

The Jewish history, belonging to a different department of academical 
education, enters not into the plan of these lectures ; though we often re- 
sort to the sacred writings for detached facts illustrative of the manners 
•f ancient nations. See appendix. 

In the ancient world, among the profane nations, the Greeks are the 
earliest people who make a dist:nguished figure, and whose history is at 
the same time authentic. t -'«... 

The Greeks owed their civilization to the Egyptians and Phoenicians. 
The Grecian history is therefore properly introduced by a short account 
of these nations, and of the Assyrians, their rivals, conquered at one time 
by the Egyptians, and conquerors afterwards of them in their turn. 

Rise of the independent states of Greece, and singular constitution ot 
the two great republics of Sparta and Athens. 

The war of Greece with Persia induces a short account of the preceding 
periods of the history of that nation, the rise of the Persian monarchy, the 
nature of its government, manners, and religion. 
B 



14 PLAN OF THE COURSE. 

The Grecian history is pursued through all the revolutions of the na- 
tion, till Greece becomes a province of the Roman empire. 

Political reflections applicable to the history of the Btates of Greece. — 
Progress of the Greek- in the arts.— Of the Greek poets, — historians, — 
philosophers. 

Rome, after the conquest of Greece, becomes the leading- object of at- 
tention. 

Origin of the Romans. — Nature of their government under the kings.— 
Easy substitution of the consular for the regal dignity. — Subsequent 
changes in the constitution. — Progress to a democracy. — Extension of the 
Roman arm3. — Conquest of Italy. — Wars with foreign nations. 

The Punic wars open a collateral view to the history of Carthage and 
of Sicily. 

Success of the Roman arms in Asia, Macedonia, and Greece. — Opu- 
lence of the republic from her conquests, and corruption of her manners.^ 
The civil wars, and ruin of the commonwealth. 

Particulars which mark the genius and national spirit of the R.omans : — 
education, — laws, — literary character, — art of war, — public and private 
manners. 

Rome under the emperors, — Artful policy by which the first emperors 
disguised their absolute authority. — Decline of the ambitious character 
of the Romans. — Easy submission to the loss of civil liberty. — The military 
spirit purposely abased by the emperors. — The empire divided becomes 
a languid body, without internal vigour. — The Gothic nations pour down 
from the north. — Italy conquered successively by the Heruli, Ostrogoths, 
and Lombards. — Extinction of the western empire- 

The manners, genius, laws, and government of the Gothic nations, form 
an important object of inquiry, from their influence on the manners and 
policy of the modern European kingdoms. 

In the delineation of modern history the leading objects of attention are 
more various ; the scene is oftener changed : nations, which for a while 
occupy the chief attention, become for a time subordinate, and afterwards 
re-assume their rank as principal ; yet the same plan is pursued as in the 
department of ancient history : the picture is occupied only by one great 
object at a time, to which all the rest hold an inferior rank, and are 
taken notice of only when connected with the principal. 

Upon the fall of the western empire, the Saracens are the first who dis 
tinguish themselves by the extension of their conquests, and the splen« 
dour of their dominion. 

While the Saracens extend their arms in the east and in Africa, a nf-w 
empire of the west is founded by Charlemagne. — The rise and progress xA 
the monarchy of the Franks. — The origin of the feudal system. — State ol 
the European manners in the age of Charlemagne. — Government, arts 
and sciences, literature. 

As collateral objects of attention, we survey the remains of the Roman 
empire in the east ; the conquests and settlements of the Normans ; the 
foundation and progress of the temporal dominion of the church of Rome ; 
the conquest of Spain by the Saracens. 

The conquest of England by the Normans solicits our attention to the 
history of Britain. Retrospective view of the British history, from its ear- 
liest period to the end of the Anglo-Saxon government in England. — Ob- 
servations on the government, laws, and manners, of the Anglo-Saxons. 

Collateral view of the state of the continental kingdoms of Europe, 
during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries. — France under the Ca- 
petian race of monarchs. — Conquests of the Normans in Italy and Sicily.- — 
State of the northern kingdoms of Europe. The eastern empire. — Empire 
oi Germany. — Disputes of supremacy between the popes ana the emperor*. 



PLAN OF THE COURSE. 15 

The history of Britain still the principal object of attention. — England 
under the kings of the Norman line, and the first princes of the Plantage- 
net branch. — The conquest of Ireland, under Henry II., introduces an an- 
ticipated progressive view of the political connexion between England 
and Ireland down to the present time. As we proceed in the delineation 
of the British history, we note particularly those circumstances which 
mark the growth of the English constitution. 

At this period all the kingdoms of Europe join in the crusades. — A brief 
account is given of those enterprises. — Moral and political effects of the 
crusades on the nations of Europe. —Origin of chivalry, and rise of roman- 
tic fiction. 

Short connected sketch of the state of the European nations after the 
crusades.-^Rise of the house of Austria. — Decline of the feudal govern- 
ment in France. — Establishment of the Swiss republics. — Disorders in the 
popedom. — Council of Constance. 

The history of Britain resumed. — England under Henry HI. and Ed- 
ward I. — The conquest of Wales. — The history of Scotland at this period 
intimately connected with that of England. — View of the Scottish history 
from Malcolm Canmore to Robert Bruce. — State of both kingdoms during 
the reigns of Edward II. and III. — The history of France connected with 
that of Britain. — France itself won by Henry V. 

The state of the east at this period affords the most interesting object of 
attention. — The progress of the Ottoman arms retarded for a while by th« 
conquests of Tamerlane and of Scanderbeg. — The Turks prosecute the: 
victories under Mahomet the great, to the total extinction of the Constaa- 
tinopolitan empire. — The constitution and policy of the Turkish empire 

France, in this age, emancipates herself from the feudal servitude ; and 
Spain, from the union of Arragon and Castile, and the fall of the kingdom 
cf the Moors, becomes one monarchy under Ferdinand and Isabella. 

The history of Britain is resumed. — Sketch of the history of England 
down to the reign of Henry VIII. ; of Scotland, during the reigns of the 
five Jameses. — Delineation of the ancient constitution of the Scottish gov- 
ernment. 

The end of the fifteenth century is a remarkable sere in the history of 
Europe. Learning and the sciences underwent at that time a very rapid 
improvement ; and, after ages of darkness, shone out at once with sur- 
prising lustre. — A connected view is presented of the progress of literature 
in Europe, from its revival down to this period. — In the same age the ad- 
vancement of navigation, and the course to India by the Cape of Good 
Hope, explored by the Portuguese, affect the commerce of all the Europe 
an kingdoms. 

The age of Charles V. unites in one connected view the affairs of Ger- 
many, of Spain, of France, of England, and of Italy. The discovery of 
the new world, the reformation in Germany and England, and the splen- 
dour of the fine arts under the pontificate of Leo X., render this period one 
of the most interesting in the annals of mankind. 

The pacification of Europe, by the treaty of Catteau Cambresis, allows 
us for a while to turn our attention to the state of Asia. A short sketch is 
given of the modern history of Persia, and the state of the other kingdoms 
of Asia, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; the history of India ; 
the manners, laws, arts, and sciences, and religion of the Hindoos ; the 
history of China and Japan ; the antiquity of the Chinese empire, its 
manners, laws, government, and attainments in the arts and sciences. 

Returning to Europe, the attention is directed to the state of the conti- 
nental kingdoms in the age of Philip II. Spain, the Netherlands, France, 
*nd England, present a various and animated picture. 

England under Elizabeth. The progress of the reformation in Scot- 
land. — The distracted reign of Mary, queen of Scots. — The history of 



16 PLAN OF THE COURSE. 

Britain pursued without interruption down to the revolution, and here clog, 
ed by a sketch of the progress of the English constitution, and an examina- 
tion of its nature at this period, when it became fixed and determined. 

The history of the southern continental kingdoms is brought down to 
the end of the reign of Louis XIV.; of the northern, to the conclusion of 
the reigns of Charles XII. of Sweden, and of Peter the great, czar of Mus- 
covy. 

We finish this view of universal history, by a survey of the state of the 
arts and sciences, and of the progress of literature in Europe, during the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 

The chronology observed in this View of Universal History is that of 
archbishop Usher, which is founded on the Hebrew text of the Sacred Wri- 
tings. A shurt Table of dr^.ol^fU i* subjoined to these heads, for the 
ease of the student. 



PART FIRST. 

ANCIENT HISTORY, 



SECTION I. 



EARLIEST AUTHENTIC ACCOUNTS OF THE HISTORY OF 
THE WORLD. 

It is a difficult task to delineate the state of mankind in the ear- 
liest ages of the world. We want information sufficient to give us 
positive ideas on the subject ; but as man advances in civilization, 
and in proportion as history becomes useful and important, its cer- 
tainty increases, and its materials are more abundant. 

Various notions have been formed with respect to the population 
of the antediluvian world and its physical appearance ; but as these 
are rather matters of theory than of fact, they scarcely fall with- 
in the province of history ; and they are of the less consequence, 
because we are certain that the state of those antediluvian ages 
could have had no material influence on the times which succeeded 
them. 

The books of Moses afford the earliest authentic history of the 
ages immediately following the deluge. 

About 150 years after that event, Nimrod (the Belus of profane 
historians) built Babylon, and Assur built Nineveh, which became the 
capital ofthe Assyrian empire. 

rf inus the son of Belus, and his queen Semiramis, are said to have 
raised the empire of Assyria to a higher degree of splendour. 

From the death of Ninias the son of Ninus, down to the revolt of 
the Medes under Sardanapalus, a period of 800 years, there is a 
chasm in the history of Assyria and Babylon. This is to be supplied 
only from conjecture. 

The earliest periods of the Egyptian history are equally uncer- 
tain with those of the Assyrian. Menes is supposed the first king ol 
Egypt ; probably the Misraim of the Holy Scriptures, the grandson 
of Noah, or, as others conjecture, the Oziris of Egypt, the inventor 
of arts, and the civilizer ot a great part of the eastern world. 

After Menes or Oziris, Egypt appears to have been divided into 
four dynasties, Thebes, Thin, Memphis, and Tanis ; and the people 
to have attained a considerable degree of civilization : but a period 
of barbarism succeeded under the shepherd-kings, subsisting for the 
Bpace of some centaries, down to the age of Sesostris (1650 A. C). 
who united the separate principalities into one kingdom, regulated 
its policy with admirable skill, and distinguished himself equally by 
his foreign conquests, and by his domestic administration. 
B3 



1* ANCIENT HISTORY. 



SECTION II 



CONSIDERATIONS ON THE NATURE OF THE FIRST GOVERN- 
MENTS, AND ON THE LAWS, CUSTOMS, ARTS, AND 
SCIENCES OF THE EARLY AGES. 

§ 1 . The earliest government is the patriarchal, which subsists in 
the rudest periods of society. 
This has an easy progress to the monarchical. 
The first monarchies must have been very weak, and their terri- 
tory extremely limited. The idea of security precedes that of 
conquest. In forming our notions of the extent of the first monar- 
chies, we are deceivec' by the word king, which according to modern 
ideas, is connected with an extent of territory, and a proportional 
power. The kings in scripture are no more than the chiefs of tribes. 
There were five kings in the vale of Sodom. J oshua defeated in his 
wars thirty-one kings, and Adonizedec threescore and ten. 

When families grew into nations, the transition from patriarchal to 
regal government, was easy ; the kingly office, probably passed by 
descent from father to son, and the sovereign ruled his tribe or na- 
tion, as the patriarch his family, by the right of birth. 

The first ideas of conquest must have proceeded from a people in 
the state of shepherds, who, necessarily changing their pastures, 
would probably make incursions on the appropriated territory of 
their neighbours. Such were the Arabian or Phoenician invaders, 
who, under the name of shepherd-kings, conquered Egypt. But 
Kingdoms so founded could have little duration. Laws and good 
policy, essential to the stability of kingdoms, are the fruit of intellec- 
tual refinement, and arise only in a state of society considerably ad- 
vanced in civilization. 

The progress from barbarism to civilization is slow, because every 
step in the progress is the result of necessity, after the experience 
of an error, or the strong feeling of a want. 

§ 2. Origin of Laws. Certain political writers have supposed 
that in the infancy of society penal laws must have been extremely 
mild. We presume the contrary to bave been ralher the case, as 
the more barbarous the people, the stronger must be the bonds to 
restrain them : and history confirms the supposition in the ancient 
laws of the Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Gauls. 

Among the earliest laws of all states are those regarding marriage ; 
for the institution of marriage is coeval with the formation of society. 
The first sovereigns of all states are said lo have instituted marriage; 
and the earliest laws provided encouragements to matrimony. 

Among the ancient nations the husband purchased his wife by 
money, or personal services. Among the Assyrians the marriageable 
women were put up at auction, and the price obtained for the more 
beautiful was assigned as a dowry to the more homely. 

The laws of succession are next in order to those of marriage. 
The father had the absolute power in the division of his estate. 
But primogeniture was understood to confer certain rights. 

Laws arise necessarily and imperceptibly from the condition of 
society; and each particular law may be traced from the state of 
manners, or the political emergency which gave it birth. Hence 
we perceive the intimate connexion between nistory and jurispru- 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 19 

dence, and the light which they must uecessarily throw upon each 
other. The laws of a country are best interpreted from its history; 
And its uncertain history is best elucidated by its ancient laws. 

§ 3. Earliest Methods of authenticating Contracts. Before the inven- 
tion of writing, contracts, testaments, sales, marriages, and the like, 
were transacted in public. The Jewish and the Grecian histories fur- 
nish examples. Some barbarous nations authenticate their bargains 
by exchanging symbols or tallies. — The Peruvians accomplished most 
of the purposes of writing by knotted cords of various colours, termed 
quipos. The Mexicans communicated intelligence to a distance by 
painting. Other nations used an abridged mode of painting, or hi- 
eroglyphics. Before writing the Egyptians used hieroglyphics for 
transmitting and recording knowledge: after writing, they employ- 
ed it for veiling or concealing knowledge from the vulgar. 

§ 4. Methods for recording Historical Facts, and publishing Laws. 
Poetry and song were the tirst vehicles of history, and the earliest 
mode of promulgating laws. The songs of the bards record a great 
deal of ancient history ; and the laws of many of the ancient nations 
were composed in verse. 

StoneSj rude and sculptured, tuirndi and mounds of earth, are the 
monuments of history among a barbarous people ; and^ columns, tri- 
umphal arches, coins, and medals, among a more refined. These 
likewise illustrate the progress of manners and of the arts. 

§ 5. Religious Institutions. Among the earliest institutions of all 
aations, are those which regard religious worship. The sentiment 
of religion is deeply rooted in the human mind. An uninstructed 
savage will infer the existence of a God, and his attributes, from the 
general order and mechanism of nature ; and even the temporary 
irregularities of nature lead to religious veneration of the unknown 
power which conducts it. 

Before conceiving the idea of a Being utterly imperceptible to his 
senses, a savage would naturally seek that Being in the most striking 
objects of sense to which he owed his most apparent benefits. The 
sun, extending his beneficial influence over all nature, was among 
the earliest objects of worship. The fire presented a symbol of the 
sun. The other celestial bodies naturally attracted their share oi 
veneration.* 

The symbolical mode of writing led to many peculiarities of the 
idolatrous worship of the ancient nations. Animals, symbolical of the 
attributes of deity, became gods themselves. The same God, re pi e- 
sented by different animals, was supposed to have changed himself 
into different forms. The gratitude and veneration for men whose 
lives had been eminently useful, joined to the belief of the soul s im- 
mortality, led to the apotheosis of heroes. Many excellent reflections 
on idolatry and polytheism are found in the book called Vie Wisdom 
of Solomon. 

The priesthood was anciently exercised by the chief or monarch; 

* It is a theory, supported by many facts, that in the beginning, all reli- 
gious truth was made known to man by direct revelation. In succeed- 
ing ages, intellectual perception was gradually clouded by the sensual 
and gross nature of man, until hi3 mind cculd not contemplate Deity, but 
through the veil of His works. Thus the heavenly were perhaps, at first 
worshipped as representative of their maker, but gradually became objects 
of direct adoration, and finally every element was peopled with deities ; 
and mountains, forests, streams, and animals, were consecrated and wor- 
shipped. 



30 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

but as an empire became extensive, the monarch exercised this office 
by his delegates; and hence an additional source of veneration for the 
priesthood. The priests were the framers and the administrators of 
the laws. 

§ 6. Arts and Sciences of the Ancient Natio?is. The useful arts are 
the offspring of necessity ; the sciences are the fruit of ease and 
leisure. The construction of huts, of weapons of war, and of hunt- 
ing, are the earliest arts. Agriculture is not practised till the tribe 
becomes stationary, and property is defined and secured. 

The sciences arise in a cultivated society, where individuals enjoy 
that leisure which invites to study and speculation. The priests 
maintained in that condition by the monarch were the earliest cul- 
tivators of science. The Egyptian science was confined to the 
priests. Astronomy, which is among the earliest of the sciences, 
owed its origin probably to superstition. Medicine was among the 
early sciences. All rude nations have a pharmacy of their own, 
equal in general to their wants. Luxury, creating new and more 
complex diseases, requires a profounder knowledge of medicine, and 
of the animal economy 



SECTION IIJ. 

OF THE EGYPTIANS. 

1 A great portion of the knowledge and attainments of the ancient 
nations, and by consequence of those of the moderns, is to be traced to 
Egypt The Egyptians instructed the Greeks ; the Greeks perform- 
ed the same office to the Romans ; and the latter have transmitted 
much of that knowledge to the world, of which we are in possession 
at this day.* 

2. The antiquity of this empire, though we give no credit to the 
chronicles of Manetho, must be allowed to be very great. The Mo- 
saic writings represent Egypt, about 430 years after the flood, as a 
flourishing and well regulated kingdom. The nature of the country 
itself affords a presumption of the great antiquity of the empire, and 
its early civilization. From the fertilizing effects of the waters of 
the Nile, it is probable that agriculture would be more early prac- 
tised there, than in regions less favoured by nature. The periodical 
inundations of the Nile are perhaps owing to the vapours of the 
Mediterranean condensed on the mountains of Ethiopia. 

3. The government of Egypt was a hereditary monarchy. The 
powers of the monarch were limited by constitutional laws; yet in 
many respects his authority was extremely despotical. The func- 
tions of the sovereign were partly civil and partly religious. — The 
king had the chief regulation of all that regarded the worship of the 
gods; and the priests, considered as his deputies, filled all the of- 
fices of state. They were both the legislators and the civil judges ; 
they imposed and levied the taxes, and regulated weights and meas- 
ures. The great national tribunal was composed of thirty judges, 
chosen from the three principal departments of the empire. The 
administration of justice was defrayed by the sovereign, and, as par- 
ties were their own advocates, was no burden upon the people. 
The penal laws of Egypt were uncommonly severe. Female chas- 

*F«r the supposed origin of Egyptian science, see Part II. Sect. 50. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 21 

tihr was most rigidly protected. Funeral rites were not conferred 
till after a scrutiny into the life of the deceased, and by a judicial 
decree approving his character. The characters even of the so ve 
reigns were subjected to this inquiry. 

There was an extraordinary regulation in Egypt regarding the 
borrowing of money. The borrower gave in pledge the body o* 
his father, and it was deprived of funeral rites if he failed to re- 
deem it. 

Population was encouraged by law ; ai.d every man was bound to 
maintain and educate the children born to him of his slaves. 

4. The manners of the Egyptians were very early formed. They 
had a singular attachment to ancient usages ; a dislike to nnovation; 
a jealousy and abhorrence of strangers. 

5. They preceded most of the ancient nations in the knowledge 
of the useful arts, and in the cultivation of the sciences. Architecture 
was early brought to great perfection. Their buildings, the pyra- 
mids, obelisks, &,c, have, from the mildness of the climate, suffered 
little injury from time. * Pliny describes the contrivance for trans- 
porting the obelisks. The whole country abounds with the remains 
of ancient magnificence. Thebes, in Upper Egypt, was one of the 
most splendid cities in the world. 

The pyramids are supposed by some writers to have been erecteo 
about 900 years A. C. They were probably the sepulchral monu- 
ments of the sovereigns. The Egyptians believed that death did 
not separate the soul from the body ; and hence their extreme care 
to preserve the body entire, by embalming, concealing it in caves and 
catacombs, and guarding it by such stupendous structures. Mr. 
Bruce supposes the pyramids to be rocks hewn into a pyramidal 
form, and encrusted, where necessary, with mason-work.* 

The remains of art in Egypt, though venerable for their great an- 
tiquity, are extremely deficient in beauty and elegance. The Egyp- 
tians, were ignorant of the construction of an arch. The remains of 
painting and sculpture evince but a slender proficiency in those arts. 

6. The Egyptians possessed considerable knowledge of geometry, 
mechanics, and astronomy. They had divided the zodiac into twelve 
signs ; they calculated eclipses ; and seem to have had an idea of 
the motion of the earth. 

7. The morality taught by the priests was pure and refined; 
but it had little influence on the manners of the people. 

0. So likewise the theology and secret doctrines of the priests 
were rational and sublime ; but the worship of the people was de- 
based by the most absurd and contemptible superstition. 

9. Notwithstanding the early civilization and the great attainments 
of this people, their national character was extremely low and des- 
picable among the contemporary nations of antiquity. The reason 
of this is, they were a people who chose to sequester themselves 
from the rest of mankind ; they were not known to other nations by 
their conquests ; they had little connexion with them by commerce , 
and they had an antipathy to the persons and manners of strangers. . 

10. There were likewise many circumstances of their own man- 
ners which tended to degrade them in the opinion of other nations. 
All professions were hereditary in Egypt, and the rank of each was 
scrupulously settled; the objects of the religious worship were dif- 
ferent in different parts of the kingdom, a fertile source of division 

* Recent travellers have almost demonstrated this supposition. 



£2 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

and controversy ; their peculiar superstitions were of the most ab 
amd and debasing nature ; and the manners of the people were ex 
tremely loose and profligate. 



SECTION IV. 

OF THE PHCENICIANS. 

1. The Phoenicians were among the most early civilized nations 
of the east. We are indebted to them for the invention of writing, 
and for the first attempts at commercial navigation. The fragments 
of Sanchoniatho are the most ancient monuments of writing after 
the books of Moses. Sanchoniatho was contemporary with Joshua, 
about 1440 A. C. and 500 before the cities of Attica were united by 
Theseus. 

2. The Phoenicians, (the Canaanites of scripture), were a com- 
mercial people in the days of Abraham. la the time of the Hebrew 
judges they had begun to colonize. Their first settlements were 
Cyprus and Rhodes ; thence they passed into Greece, Sicily, Sardinia, 
and Spain ; and formed establishments likewise on the western coast 
of Africa. The Sidonians carried on an extensive commerce at the 
time of the Trojan war. 



SECTION V. 

THE HISTORY OF GREECE. 

1 Greece being indebted for the first rudiments of civilization to 
the Egyptians and Phoenicians, its history is properly introduced by 
an account of those more ancient nations. 

2. The early antiquities of this country are disguised by fable 
but from the time when it becomes important, it has been treated oi 
by eminent writers. 

3. The ancient inhabitants of Greece, the Pelasgi, Hiantes, Lele- 
ges, were extremely barbarous ; but a dawning of civilization arose 
under the Titans, a Phoenician or Egyptian colony, who settled in 
the country about the time of Moses. The Titans gave the Greeks 
the first ideas of religion, and introduced the worship of their own 

5ods, Saturn, Jupiter, Ceres, &c. Succeeding ages confounded those 
"itans themselves with the gods, and hence sprung numberless fables. 

4. Inachus, the last of the Titans, founded the kingdom of Argos, 
1856 A. C. ; and Egialtes, one of his sons, the kingdom of Sicyon. 

5. In the following century happened the deluge of Ogyges, 1796 
A. C. Then followed a period of barbarism for above 200 years. 

6. Cecrops, the leader of another colony from Egypt, landed in 
Attica, 1582 A. C; and, connecting himself with the last king, suc- 
ceeded, on his death, to the sovereignty. He built twelve cities, 
and was eminent, both as a lawgiver and politician. 

7. The Grecian history derives some authenticity at this period 
from the Chronicle of Paros, preserved among the Arundelian mar- 
bles at Oxford. The authority of this chronicle has been questioned 
of late, and many arguments adduced presumptive of its being a 
lorgery ; but, on a review of the whole contrcversy, we judge the ar- 
guments for its authenticity to preponderate. It fixes the dates of the 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 23 

most remarkable events in the history of Greece, from the time of 
("ocrops down to the age of Alexander the great. 

3. Cranaus succeeded Cecrops, in whose time happened two re- 
markable events recorded in the Chronicle of Paros : the judgment 
of the areopagus between Mars and Neptune, two princes of Thessa- 
fy ; and the deluge of Deucalion. The court of areopagus, at Athens, 
was instituted by Cecrops. The number of its judges varied at differ- 
ent periods, from nine to fifty one. The deluge of Deucalion, magni- 
fied and disguised by the poets, was probably only a partial inundation. 

9. Amphyction, the contemporary of Cranaus, if the founder of 
the amphyctionic council, must have possessed extensive views ot 
policy. This council, from a league of twelve cities, became a 
representative assembly of the states of Greece, and had the most 
admirable political effects in uniting the nation, and giving it a com- 
mon interest. 

10. Cadmus, about 1519, A. C, introduced alphabetic writing into 
Greece, from Phoenicia. The alphabet then had only sixteen letters ; 
and the mode of writing (termed boustrophedon), was alternately from 
right to left and left to right. From this period the Greeks made 
rapid advances in civilization. 

SECTION VI. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE FIRST AND RUDEST PERIODS OF 
THE GRECIAN HISTORY. 

1. The country of Greece presents a large, irregular peninsuk. 
intersected by many chains of mountains, separating its different 
districts, and opposing natural impediments to general intercourse, 
and therefore to rapid civilization. The extreme barbarism of the 
Pelasgi, who are said to have been cannibals, and ignorant of the 
use of fire, has its parallel in modern barbarous nations. There 
were many circumstances that retarded the progress of the Greeks 
to refinement. The introduction of a national religion was best fit- 
ted to remove those obstacles. Receiving this new system of theolo- 
gy from strangers, and entertaining at first very confused ideas of it, 
they would naturally blend its doctrines and worship with the notions 
of religion which they formerly possessed ; and hence we observe 
only partial coincidences of the Grecian with the Egyptian and 
Phoenician mythologies. It has been a vain and wearisome labour of 
modern mythological writers, to attempt to trace all the fables of anti- 
quity, and the various systems of pagan theology, up to one common 
source. The difficulty of this is best shown, by comparing the differ- 
ent and most contradictory solutions of the same fable given by differ- 
ent mythologists ; as, for example, lord Bacon and the abbe Banier. 
Some authors, with much indiscretion, have attempted to deduce all 
the Pagan mythologies from the holy scriptures. Such researches 
are unprofitable, sometimes mischievous. 

2. Superstition, in the early periods, was a predominant charac- 
teristic of the Greeks. To this age, and to this character of the 
people, we refer the origin of the Grecian oracles, and the institu- 
tion of the public games in honour of the gods. 

The desire of penetrating into futurity, and the superstition com- 
mon to rude nations, gave rise to the oracles of Delphi, Dodona, &c. 

The resort of strangers to these oracles on particular occasions, 
ted to the celebration of a festival, and to public games. 



24 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The four solemn games of the Greeks, particularly termed upot, 
were the Olympic, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian 
They consisted principally in contests of skill in all the athletic ex 
ercises, and the prizes were chiefly honorary marks of distinction. 
Archbishop Potter, in his Archzlogia Grceca, fully details their par- 
ticular nature. These games had excellent political effects, in pro- 
moting national union, in diffusing the love of glory, and training the 
youth to martial exercises. They cherished at once a heroical and 
superstitious spirit, which led to the formation of extraordinary and 
hazardous enterprises. 



SECTION VII. 

EARLY PERIOD OF THE GRECIAN HISTORY. THE ARGO- 
NAUTIC EXPEDITION. WARS OF THEBES AND OF TROY. 



the Trojan war, is intermixed with tables ; but contains, at tne same 
time, many facts entitled to credit, as authentic. Erectheus, or Erich- 
thonius, either a Greek who had visited Egypt, or the leader ot a 
new Egyptian colony, cultivated the plains of Eleusis, and instituted 



1. The history of Greece, for a period of 300 years preceding 
the Troian war, is intermixed with fables ; but contains, at the same 
time, 
thonius 

new Egyptia.. 

the Eleusinian mysteries, in imitation of the Egyptian games ot Isis. 
These mysteries were of a religious and moral nature, conveying the 
doctrines of the unity of God, the immortality of the soul, and a 
future state of reward and punishment. Cicero speaks ot them 
with high encomium. But the ceremonies connected with them 
seem to be childish and ridiculous. 

2. Theseus laid the foundation of the grandeur ot Attica, by unit- 
ing its twelve cities, and giving them a common constitution, 1257 
A C. 

*3. The first great enterprise of the Greeks was the Argonautic 
expedition, 1263 A. C. (Usher), and 937 A. C. (sir I. Newton V 
This is supposed to have been both a military and a mercantile ad- 
venture, and was singularly bold for the times in which it was under- 
taken. The object was, to open the commerce of the Luxme sea, 
and to secure some establishments on its coasts. The astronomer 
Chiron directed the plan of the voyage, and formed, for the use oi 
the mariners, a scheme of the constellations, fixing with accuracy 
the solstitial and equinoctial points. Sir Isaac Newton has founded 
his emendation of the ancient chronology on a calculation ot the 
regular procession of the equinoxes from this period to the present, 
as well as on an estimate of the medium length of human genera- 
tions. . _, , 

4. The state of the military art at this time in Greece may be 
estimated from an account of the sieges of Thebes and Troy. 

In these enterprises the arts of attack and defence were very rude 
and imperfect. The siege was entirely of the nature of blockade, and 
therefore necessarily of long duration. A dispute for the divided 
sovereignty of Thebes between the brothers Eteocles and Polvnices, 
gave rise to the war, which was terminated by single combat, in 
which both were killed. 

5. The sons of the commanders slam in this war renewed the 
quarrel of their fathers, and occasioned the war of the Epigwun, 
subject on which Homer is said to have written a poem, now lost, 
equal to the Iliad and Odyssey. 



AJMCIENT HISTORY. 

6. The detail of the war of Troy rests chiefly on the authority 
of Homer, and ought not, in spite of modern scepticism lobe refus 
ed, in its principal facts, the credit ot a true history. After a block- 
ade of ten years Troy was taken, either by storm or surprise, 1184 
A. C, and being set on fire in tne night, was burnt to the ground ; 
not a vestige of its ruins existing at the present day. The empire fell 
from that moment. The Greeks settled a colony near the spot, and 
the rest of the kingdom was occupied by the Lydians. 

7. Military expeditions at this time were carried on only in the 
spring and summer. In a tedious siege the winter was a season ot 
armistice. The science of military tactics was then utterly unknown. 
every battle being a multitude of single combats. The soldier had 
no pay but his share of the booty, divided by the chiefs. The 
weapons of war were the sword, the bow, the javelin, the club, the 
hatchet, and the sling. A helmet of brass, an enormous shield, a 
cuirass, and buskins, were the weapons of defence. 



SECTION VIII. 
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GREEK COLONIES. 

1. About eighty years after the taking of Troy, began the war oi 
the Heraclidae. Hercules, the son oi Amphitryon, sovereign of 
Mycenae, was banished from his country with all his family, while 
the crown was possessed by a usurper. His descendants, after the 
period of a century, returned to Peloponnesus, and subduing all 
their enemies, took possession of the states of Mycenae, Argos, anc! 
Lacedaemon. 

2. A long period of civil war and bloodshed succeeded, and Greece, 
divided among a number of petty tyrants, suffered equally the mis- 
eries of oppression and anarchy. 

Codrus, king of Athens, showed a singular example of patriotism, 
in devoting himself to death for his country; yet the Athenians, 
weary of monarchy, determined to make the experiment of a popu- 
i ar constitution. Medon, the son of Codrus, was elected chief magis- 
trate, with the title of archon. This is the commencement of the 
Athenian republic, about 1068 A. C. 

3. It was at this time that the Greeks began to colonize. The 
oppression which they suffered at home forced many of them to 
abandon their country, and seek refuge in other lands. A large body 
of iEolians from Peloponnesus founded twelve cities in the Lesser 
Asia, of which Smyrna was the most considerable. A troop oi 

onian exiles built Ephesus, Colophon, Clazomene, and other towns ; 
giving to their new settlements the name of their native country, 
Ionia. The Dorians sent oft colonies to Italy and Sicily, founding, in 
the former, Tarentum and Locri, and in the latter, Syracuse and 
Arigentum. The mother country considered its colonies as eman- 
cipated children. These speedily attained to eminence and splen- 
dour, rivalling and surpassing their parent states : and the example 
of their prosperity, which was attributed to the freedom of their 
governments, incited the states of Greece, oppressed by a number of 
petty despots, to put an end to the regal government, and try tho 
experiment oi a popular constitution. Athens and Thebes gave the 
first examples, which were soon followed by all the rest. 

4. These infant republics demanded new laws : and it was neces- 

C 



26 AMCIENT HIS TORY. 

sary that some enlightened citizen should arise, who had discernment 
to perceive what system of legislation was most adapted to the char- 
acter of his native state ; who had abilities to compile such a system, 
and sufficient authority with his countrymen to recommend and en- 
force it. Such men were the Spartan Lycurgus and the Athenian 
Solon. 

SECTION IX 

THE REPUBLIC OF SPARTA. 

1. The origin of this political system has given rise to much inge- 
nious disquisition among the moderns, and affords a remarkable in- 
stance of the passion for systematizing. It is a prevailing propensity 
with modem philosophers to reduce every thing to general princi- 
ples. Man, say tbey, is always the same animal, and, when placed 
in similar situations, will always exhibit a similar appearance. His 
manners, his improvements, the government and laws under which 
he lives, arise necessarily from the situation in which we find him ; 
and all is the result of a few general laws of nature, which operate 
universally on the human species. But in the ardour of this passion 
for generalizing, these nhilosophers often forget, that it is the knowl- 
edge of facts which can' alone lead to the discovery of general laws: 
a knowledge not limited to the history of a single age or nation, but 
extended to that of the whole species in every age and climate. 
Antecedently to such knowledge, all historical system is mere rc> 
mance. 

2. Of this nature is a late theory of the constitution of Sparta, first 
started by Mr. Browne, in his Essay on Civil Liberty ; and from him 
adopted by later writers. It thus accounts for the origin of the Spar- 
tan constitution* " The army of the Heraclidae, when they came to 
recover the dominion of their ancestors, was composed of Dorians 
from Thessaly, the most barbarous of all the Greek tribes. The 
Achaeans, the ancient inhabitants of Laconia, were compelled to seek 
new habitations, while the barbarians of Thessaly took possession of 
their country. Of all the nations which are the subject of historical 
record, this people bore the nearest resemblance to the rude Ameri- 
cans. An American tribe where a chief presides, where the council 
of the aged deliberate, and the assembly of the people gives their 
voice, is on the eve of such a political establishment as the Spartan 
constitution." The Dorians or Thessalians settled in Lacedaemon, 
manifested, it is said, the same manners with all other nations in a 
barbarous state. Lycurgus did no more than arrest them in that state, 
by forming their usages into laws. He checked them at once in the 
first stage of their improvement. u He put forth a bold hand to that 
spring which is in society, and stopt its motion." 

3. This theory, however ingenious, is confuted by facts. All an- 
cient authors agree, that Lycurgus operated a total change on the 
Spartan manners, and on the constitution of his country ; while the 
moderns have discovered that he made no change on either. The 
most striking features of the manners and constitution of Sparta had 
not the smallest resemblance to those of any rude nations with which 
we are acquainted. The communion of slaves and of many other 
species of property, the right of the state in the children of all the 

* Logan's Philosophy of History, &c. 



AJNCIENT HISTORY. £7 

citizens, their common education, the public tables, the equal divi- 
sion of lands, the oath of government between the kings and people) 
have no parallel in the history of any barbarous nation. 

4. The real history of Sparta and its constitution is therefore not 
to be found in modern theory, but in the writings of the Greek his- 
torians, and these are our sole authorities worthy of credit. 

After the return of the Heraclidae, Sparta was divided between 
the two sons of Aristodemus, Eurysthenes, and Procles, who jointly 
reigned ; and this double monarchy, transmitted to the descendants 
of each, continued in the separate branches for near 900 years. A 
radical principle of disunion, and consequent anarchy, made the want 
of constitutional laws be severely felt. Lycurgus, brother of Poly- 
dectes, one of the kings of Sparta, a man distinguished alike by his 
abilities and virtues, was invested, by the concurring voice of the 
sovereigns and people, with the important duty of reforming and new- 
modelling the constitution of his country, 884 A. C. 

5. Lycurgus instituted a senate, elective, of twenty-eight mem 
oers ; whose office was to preserve a just balance between the pow- 
er of the kings and that of the people. Nothing could come before 
the assembly of the people which had not received the previous con- 
sent of the senate ; and, on the other hand, no judgment of the sen- 
ate was effectual without the sanction of the people. The kings pre- 
sided in the senate ; they were the generals of the republic : but 
they could plan no enterprise without the consent of a council of the 
citizens. 

6. Lycurgus bent his attention most particularly to the regulation 
of manners ; and one great principle pervaded his whole system; 
Luxury is the bane of society. 

He divided the territory ol the republic into 39,000 equal portions, 
among the whole of its free citizens. 

He substituted iron money for gold and silver, prohibited the prac- 
tice of commerce, abolished all useless arts, and allowed even those 
necessary to life to be practised only by the slaves. 

The whole citizens made their principal repast at the public ta- 
bles. The meals were coarse and parsimonious ; the conversation 
was fitted to improve the youth in virtue, and cultivate the patriotic 
spirit. 

The Spartan education rejected all embellishments of the under- 
standing. It nourished only the severer virtues. It taught the du- 
ties of religion, obedience to the laws, respect for parents, reverence 
for old age, inflexible honour, undaunted courage, contempt of dan- 
ger and of death ; above all, the love of glory and of their country 

7. But the general excellence of the institutions of Lycurgus was 
impaired by many blemishes. The manners of the Lacedaemonian 
women were shamefully loose. They frequented the baths, and 
fought naked in the palaestra promiscuously with the men. Theft 
was a part ol Spartan education. The youth were taught to subdue 
the feelings of humanity ; the slaves were treated with the most bar- 
barous rigour, and often massacred for sport. The institutions of 
Lycurgus had no other end than to form a nation of soldiers. 

8. A faulty part of the constitution of Sparta was the office of the 
ephori: magistrates elected by the people, whose power, though in 
§ome respects subordinate, was in others paramount to that of h e 
kings and senate. 



W AJNC1ENT HISTORY. 

SECTION X. 

THE REPUBLIC OF ATHENS. 

I On the abolition of the regal office at Athens, the change of 
the constitution was more nominal than real. The archonship was, 
during three centuries, a perpetual and hereditary magistracy. In 
f 754 A. C. this office became decennial. In 648 the archons were 
annually elected and were nine in number, with equal authority. 
Under all these changes the state was convulsed, and the condition of 
the people miserable. 

2. Draco, elevated to the archonship 624 A. C, projected a reform 
in the constitution of his country, and thought to repress disorders by 
the extreme severity of penal laws. But his talents were unequal 
to the task he had undertaken. 

3. Solon, an illustrious Athenian, of the race of Codrus, attained 
the dignity of archon 594 A. C , and was entrusted with the care of 
framing for his country a new form of government, and a new sys- 
tem of laws. He possessed extensive knowledge, but wanted that 
intrepidity of mind which is necessary to the character of a great 
statesman. His disposition was mild and temporizing ; and, without 
attempting to reform the manners of his countrymen, he accommo- 
dated his system to their prevailing habits and passions. 

4. The people claimed the sovereign power, and they received 
it ; the rich demanded offices and dignities : the system of Solon 
accommodated them to the utmost of their wishes, He divided the 
citizens into four classes, according to the measure of their wealth. 
To the three first, the richer citizens, belonged all the offices of the 
commonwealth. The fourth, the poorer class, more numerous than 
all the other three, had an equal right of suffrage with them in the 
public assembly, wnere all laws were framed, and measures of state 
decreed. Consequently the weight of the latter decided every ques- 
tion. 

5. To regulate in some degree the proceedings of those assem- 
blies, and balance the weight of the popular interest, Solon instituted 
a senate of 400 members (afterwards enlarged to 500 and 600), 
with whom it was necessary that every measure should originate, 
before it became the subject of discussion in the assembly of the 
people. 

6. To the court of areopagus he committed the guardianship of 
the laws, and the power of enforcing them; with the supreme 
administration of justice. To this tribunal belonged likewise the 
custody of the treasures of the state, the care of religion, and a 
tutorial power over all the youth of the republic. The number o» 
its judges was various at different periods, and tha most immaculate 
purity of character was essential to that high office. 

7. The authority of the senate and areopagus imposed some check 
on the popular assemblies ; but as these possessed the ultimate right 
of decision, it was always in the power of ambitious demagogues to 
sway them to the worst of purposes. Continual factions divided the 
people, and corruption pervaded every department .of the state. 
The public measures, the result of the interested schemes of indi- 
viduals, were often equally absurd as they were profligate. Athena 
often saw her best patriots, the wisest and most virtuous of her citi* 
£ens, shamefully sacrificed to the most depraved and most abandoned. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 3# 

8. The particular laws of the Athenian state are more deserving of 
encomium than its form of government. The laws relating to debt- 
ors were mild and equitable, as were those which regulated thi 
treatment of slaves. But the vassalage of women, or their abso- 
lute subjection to the control of their nearest relations, approached 
too near to a state of servitude. The proposer of a law found on 
experience impolitic was liable to punishment; an enactment ap- 
parently rigorous, but probably necessary in a popular government 

9. One most iniquitous and absurd peculiarity of the Athenian, and 
some other governments of Greece, was the practice of the ostra- 
cism, a ballot of all the citizens, in which each wrote down the name 
of the person in his opinion most obnoxious to censure ; and he who 
was thus marked out by the greatest number of voices, though un- 
impeached of any crime, was banished for ten years from his coun- 
try. This barbarous and disgraceful institution, ever capable of the 
grossest abuse, and generally subservient to the worst of purposes, 
has stained the character of Athens with many flagrant instances 
of public ingratitude. 

10. The manners of the Athenians formed the most striking con- 
trast to those of the Lacedaemonians. At Athens the arts were in 
the highest esteem. The Lacedaemonians despised the arts, and all 
who cultivated them. At Athens peace was the natural state of the 
republic, and the refined enjoyment of life the aim of all its subjects. 
Sparta was entirely a military establishment ; and her subjects, when 
unengaged in war, were totally unoccupied. Luxury was the char- 
acter of the Athenian, as frugality of the Spartan. They were 
equally jealous of their liberty, and equally brave in war. The 
courage of the Spartans sprang from constitutional ferocity, that oi 
the Athenian from the principle of honour. 

11. The Spartan government had acquired solidity, while all the 
rest of Greece was torn by domestic dissensions. Athens, a prey to 
faction and civil disorder, surrendered her liberties to Pisistratus, 550 
A. C. ; who, after various turns of fortune, established himself firm- 
ly in the sovereignty, exercised a splendid and munificent dominion, 
completely gained the, affections of the people, and transmitted a 
peaceable crown to his sons Hippias and Hipparcnus. 

12. Hermodias and Aristogiton undertook to restore the democra- 
cy ; and succeeded in the attempt. Hipparchus was put to death ; 
and Hippias, dethroned, solicited a foreign aid to replace him in the 
sovereignty. Darius, the son of Hystaspes, meditated at this time 
the conquest of Greece. Hippias took advantage of the views of 
an enemy against his native country, and Greece was now involved 
in a war with Persia. 



SECTION XI. 

OF THE STATE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE, AND ITS HISTORY 
DOWN TO THE WAR WITH GREECE. 

1. The first empire of the Assyrians ended under Sardanapalus, and 
three monarchies arose upon its ruins, Nineveh, Babylon, and the 
kingdom of the Medes. 

2. The history of Babylon and of Nineveh is very imperfectly 
known. The Medes, hitherto independent tribes, were united under 
a monarchy by Dejoces. His son Phraortes conquered Persia, but was 

C 2 



SO ANCIENT HISTORY. 

himself vanquished by Nabuchodonosor I., king of Assyria, and put 
to death. Nabuchodonosor II. led the Jews into captivity, took Je- 
rusalem and Tyre, and subdued Egypt. 

3. The history of Cyrus is involved in great uncertainty ; nor is 
it possible to reconcile or apply to one man the different accounts 
given of him by Herodotus, Ctesias, and Xenophon. Succeeding 
his father Cambyses in the throne of Persia, and his uncle Cyaxares 
in the sovereignty of the Medes, he united these empires, vanquish- 
ed the Babylonians and Lydians, subjected the greatest part of the 
Lesser Asia, and made himself master of Syria and Arabia. 

4. He was succeeded by his son Cambyses, distinguished only as 
a tyrant and a madman. 

5. After the death of Cambyses, Darius, the son of Hystaspes. 
was elected sovereign of Persia, a prince of great enterprise and 
ambition. Unfortunate in a rash expedition against the Scythians, 
he projected and achieved the conquest of India. Inflated with suc- 
cess, he now meditated an invasion of Greece, and cordially entered 
into the views of Hippias, who sought by his means to regain the 
sovereignty of Athens. 

6. Government, Manners, Laws, fyc. of the Ancient Persians. The 
government of Persia was an absolute monarchy ; the will of the sov- 
ereign being subject to no control, and his person revered as sacred: 
yet the education bestowed by those monarchs on their children was 
calculated to inspire every valuable quality of a sovereign. 

The ancient Persians in general bestowed the utmost attention on 
the education of youth. Children at the age of five were committed 
to the care of the magi, for the improvement of their mind and 
morals. They were trained at the same time to every manly exercise. 
The sacred bookii of the Zendavesta promised to e\ ery worthy parent 
the imputed merit and rewairi of all the good actions of his chil- 
dren. 

7. Luxurious as they were in after times, the early Persians were 
distinguished for their temperance, bravery, and virtuous simplicity 
of manners. They were all trained to the use of arms, and display- 
ed great intrepidity in war. The custom of the women following 
their armies to the field, erroneously attributed to effeminacy, was 
a remnant of barbarous manners. 

8. The kingdom of Persia was divided into several provinces, each 
under a governor or satrap, who was accountable to the sovereign 
for the whole of his conduct. The prince, at stated times, visited 
his provinces in person, correcting all abuses, easing the burdens 
of the oppressed, and encouraging agriculture and the practice of 
the useful arts. The laws of Persia were mild and equitable, anc 
the utmost purity was observed in the administration of justice. 

9. The religion of the ancient Persians is of great antiquity. I 
is conjectured that there were two-Zoroasters ; the first, the founder 
of this ancient religion, and of whom are recorded miracles and 
prophecies ; the second, a reformer of that religion, contemporary 
with Darius the son of Hystaspes. The Zendavesta, or sacred book, 
compiled by the former, was improved and purified by the latter. 
It has been lately translated into French by ML Anquetil, and appears 
to contain, amidst a mass of absurdity, some sublime truths, and ex- 
cellent precepts of morality. The theology of the Zendavesta is 
founded on the doctrine of two opposite principles, a good and an 
evil, Ormusd and Ahriman, eternal beings, who divide between them 
the government of the universe, and whose warfare must endure till 



AJSCIENT HISTORY. 31 

the end of 12,000 years, when the good will finally prevail over the 
evil. A separation will ensue of the votaries of eacn : the just shall 
be admitted to tiie immediate enjoyment of Paradise ; the wicked, 
after a limited purification by fire, shall ultimately be allowed to par 
take in the blessings of eternity. Ormusd is to be adored through 
the medium of his greatest works, the sun, moon, and stars. The 
fire, the symbol of the sun, the air, the earth, the water, have theii 
subordinate worship. 

The morality of the Zendavesta is best known from its abridg- 
ment, the Sadder, complied about three centuries ago by the modern 
Guebres. It inculcates a chastened species of epicurism; allowing 
a free indulgence of the passions, while consistent with the welfare 
of society. It prohibits equally intemperance and ascetic mortifica- 
tion. It recommends, as precepts of religion, the cultivation of the 
earth, the planting of fruit-trees, the destruction of noxious animals, 
the bringing water to a barren land. 

10. Such were the ancient Persians. But their character had un- 
dergone a great change before the period of the war with Greece. 
At this time they were a degenerate and corrupted people. Athens 
had recently thrown oif the yoke of the Pisistratidae, and highly val- 
ued her new liberty. Sparta, in the ardour of patriotism, forgot all 
jealousy of her rival state, and cordially united in the defence of 
their common country. The Persians, in this contest, had no other 
advantage than that of numbers, an unequal match for superior hero- 
ism and military skill. 



SECTION XII. 

THE WAR BETWEEN GREECE AND PERSIA. 

1 . The ambition of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, heightened by the 
passion of revenge, gave rise to the proiect of that monarch for the 
invasion of Greece. The Athenians hud aided the people of Ionia in 
an attempt to throw off the yoke of Persia, and burnt and ravaged 
Sardis, the capital of Lydia. Darius speedily reduced the lonians to 
submission, and then turned his arms against the Greeks, their allies ; 
the exile Hippias eagerly prompting the expedition. 

2. After an insolent demand of submission, which the Greeks scorn- 
fully refused, Darius began a hostile attack both by sea and land. 
The first Persian fleet was wrecked in doubling the promontory of 
Athos ; a second, of 600 sail, ravaged the Grecian islands ; while an 
immense army landing in Euboea, poured down with impetuosity on 
Attica. The Athenians met them on the plain of Marathon, and, 
headed by Miltiades, defeated them with prodigious slaughter, 490 
A. C. The loss of the Persians in this battle was 6,300, and that of 
the Athenians 190. 

3. The merit of Miltiades, signally displayed in this great battle, 
was repaid by his country with the most shocking ingratitude. Ac- 
cused of treason for an unsuccessful attack on the isle of Paros. his 
sentence of death was commuted into a fine of fifty talents ; which 
being unable to pay he was thrown into prison, and there died of his 
wounds. 

4. The glory of ungrateful Athens was yet nobly sustained m the 
Persian war by Therristocles and Aristides. Darius dying wa9 suc- 
ceeded by his son Xerxes, the heir of his father's ambition, but not of 



S2 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

his abilities. He armed, as is said, five millions of men. for the con- 
quest of Greece; 1,200 ships of war, and 3,000 ships of burden. 
| Landing in Thessalv he proceeded, by rapid marches, to Thermop- 
ylae, a narrow defile on the Sinus Maliacus. The Athenians and 
Spartans, aided only by the Thespians, Plataeans, and Eginetes, de- 
termined to withstand the invader. Leonidas, king of Sparta, was 
chosen to defend this important pass with 6,000 men. Xerxes, after 
a weak attempt to corrupt him, imperiously summoned him to lay 
down his arms. Let hii.i came, said Leonidas, and take them. For two 
days the Persians in vain strove to force their way, and were repeat- 
edly repulsed with great slaughter. An unguarded track being at 
length discovered, the defence of the pass became a fruitless attempt 
on the part of the Greeks. Leonidas, foreseeing certain destruction, 
commanded all to retire but 300 of his countrymen. His motive was 
to give the Persians a just idea of the spirit of that foe whom they 
had to encounter. He, with his brave Spartans, were all cut off to a 
man, 480 A. C. A monument, erected on the spot, bore this noble 
inscription, written by Simonides : O stranger! tell it at Laceda>mon y 
tliai we died here in obedience to her laws. 

5. The Persians poured down upon Attica. The inhabitants of 
Athens, after conveying their women and children to the islands for 
security, betook themselves to their fleet, abandoning the city, which 
the Persians pillaged and burnt. The fleet of the Greeks, consisting 
of 380 sail, was attacked in the straits of Salamis by that of the Per- 
sians, amounting to 1,200 ships. Xerxes himself beheld from an em- 
inence on the coast the total discomfiture of his squadron. He then 
fled with precipitation across the Hellespont. A second overthrow 
awaited his army by land : for Mardonius, at the head of 300,000 
Persians, was totally defeated at Platcea by the combined army of the 
Athenians and Lacedaemonians, 479 A. C. On the same day the 
Greeks engaged and destroyed the remains of the Persian fleet at 
Mycale. From that day the ambitious schemes of Xerxes were at 
an end ; and his inglorious life was soon after terminated by assassina 
tion. He was succeeded in the throne of Persia by his son Artaxerxes 
Longimanus, 464 A. C. 

6. At this time the national character of the Greeks was at its highest 
elevation. The common danger had annihilated all partial jealousies 
between the states, and given them union as a nation. But with the 
cessation of danger those jealousies recommenced. Sparta meanly 
opposed the rebuilding of deserted Athens. Athens, rising again into 
splendour, saw with pleasure the depopulation of Sparta by an earth- 
quake, and hesitated to give her aid in that juncture of calamity 
against a rebellion of her slaves. 

7. Cimon, the son of Miltiades. after expelling the Persians from 
Thrace, attacked and destroyed tneir fleet on the coast of Pamphylia, 
and, landing his troops, gained a signal victory over their army the 
same day. Supplanted in the public favour by -the arts of his rival 
Pericles, he suffered a temporary exile, to return only with higher 
popularity, and to signalize himself still more in the service of his 
ungrateful country. He attacked and totally destroyed the Persian 
fleet of 300 sail, and, landing in Cilicia, completed his triumph, by 
defeating 300,000 Persians under Megabyzes, 460 A. C. Artaxerxes 
now had the prudence to sue for peace, which was granted by the 
Greeks, on terms most honourable to the nation. They stipulated 
for the freedom of all the Grecian cities of Asia, and that the fleets of 
Persia should not approach their coasts from the Euxine to the ex- 



ANCIENT HISTORY. S3 

treme boundary of Pamphylia. The last fifty years were the period 
of the highest glory of the Greeks ; and they owed their prosperity 
entirely to their union. The peace with Persia, dissolving that con 
nexion, brought back the jealousies between the predominant states, 
the intestine disorders of each, and the national weakness. 

8. The martial and the patriotic spirit began visibly to decline in 
Athens, An acquaintance With Asia^ and an importation of her 
wealth, introduoed a relish for Asiatic manners and luxuries. With 
the Athenians, however, this luxurious spirit was under the guidance 
of taste and genius. It led to the cultivation of the finer arts ; and 
the age of Pericles, though the national glory was in its wane, is the 
aera of the highest internal splendour and magnificence of Greece. 



SECTION Xlll. 
AGE OF PERICLES. 

1. Republics, equally with monarchies, are generally regulated 
by a single will : only, in the former there is a more frequent change 
of masters. Pericles ruled Athens with little less than arbitrary 
sway; and Athens pretended at this time to the command of Greece 
She held the allied states in the most absolute subjection, and lavished 
their subsidies, bestowed for the national defence, in magnificent 
buildings, games, and festivals, for her own citizens. The tributary 
states loudly complained, but durst not call this domineering republic 
to account ; and the war of Peloponnesus, dividing the nation into 
two great parties, bound the less cities to the strictest subordination 
on the predominantpowers. 

2. The state of Corinth had been included in the last treaty be- 
tween Athens and Sparta. The Corinthians waging war with the 
people of Corcyra, an ancient colony of their own, both parties so- 
licited the aid of Athens, which took part with the latter: a measure 
which the Corinthians complained of, not only as an infraction of the 
treaty with Sparta, but as a breach of a general rule of the national 
policy, that no foreign power should interfere in the disputes between 
a colony and its parent state. War was proclaimed on this ground 
between Athens and Lacedaemon, each supported by its respective 
allies. The detail of the war, which continued for twenty-eight 
years, with various and alternate success, is to be found in Tfoucyd- 
ldes. Pericles died before its termination ; a splendid ornament of 
his country, but a corrupter of its manners. Alcibiades ran a similar 
career, with equal talents, equal ambition, and still less purity ol 
moral principle. In the interval of a truce with Sparta he inconsid 
erately projected the conquest of Sicily ; and, failing in the attempt, 
was, on his return to Athens, condemned to death for treason. He 
hesitated not to wreak his vengeance against his country, by selling 
nis services, first to Sparta, and afterwards to Persia. Finally, he 
purchased his peace with his country, by betraying the power 
which protected him, and returned to Athens the idol of a populace 
as versatile as worthless. 

3. A fatal defeat of the Athenian fleet at iEgos Potamos, by Ly- 
sander, reduced Athens to the last extremity ; and the Lacedaemonians 
blockaded the city by land and sea. The war was ended by the 
absolute submission of the Athenians, who agreed to demolish their 
port, to limit their fleet to twelve ships, and undertake for the fb 

5 



34 ANCIENT HISTORV. 

no military enterprise, but under command of the Lacedaemonians, 
405 A. C. 

4. To the same Lysander, who terminated the Peloponnesian war 
so gloriously for Lacedaemon, history ascribes the first great breach 
of the constitution of his country, by the introduction of gold into 
that republic. Lysander, after the reduction of Athens, abolished 
the popular government in that state, and substituted in its place 
thirty tyrants, whose power was absolute* The most eminent of 
the citizens fled from their country : but a band of patriots, headed 
by Thrasybulus, attacked, vanquished, and expelled the usurpers, 
and once more re-established the democracy. 

5. One event, which happened at this time, reflected more disgrace 
on the Athenian name than their national humiliation : this was the per- 
secution and death of Socrates, a philosopher who was himself the 

{>attern of every virtue which he taught. The sophists, whose futile 
ogic he derided and exposed, represented him as an enemy to the 
religion of his country, because, without regard to the popular su- 
perstitions, he led the mind to the knowledge of a Supreme Being, 
the creator and ruler of the universe, and to the belief of a future 
state of retribution. He made his defence with the manly fortitude of 
conscious innocence ; but in vain : his judges were his personal ene- 
mies, and he was condemned to die by poison, 397 A. C. (See Sec- 
tion XXIII, § 5.) 

6. On the death of Darius Nothus, his eldest son Artaxerxes Mne- 
mon succeeded to the empire of Persia. His younger brother Cyrus 
formed the project of dethroning him, and with the aid of 1 3,000 
Greeks engaged him near Babylon, but was defeated and slain ; a 
just reward of his most culpable enterprise. The remainder of the 
Grecian army, to the amount of 10,000, under the command of Xen- 
ophon, made a most amazing retreat, traversing a hostile country of 
1,600 miles in extent, from Babylon to the banks of the Euxine Xen- 
ophon has beautifully written the history of this expedition ; but has 
painted the character of Cyrus in too flattering colours, and without 
the smallest censure of his criminal ambition. 

7. The Greek cities of Asia had taken part with Cyrus. Sparta 
was engaged to defend her countrymen, and consequently was in- 
volved in a war with Persia. Had Athens added her strength, the 
Greeks might have once more defied the power of Asia ; but jealousy 
kept the states divided, and even hostile to each other; and the gold 
of Artaxerxes excited a general league in Greece against Lacedae- 
mon. Agesilaus, king of Sparta, sustained for a time the honour of 
his country, and won some important battles in Asia; but ethers were 
lost in Greece ; and a naval defeat near Cnidos utterly destroyed the 
Lacedaemonian fleet. Finally, to escape total destruction, the Spartans 
sued for peace, and obtained it by the sacrifice to Persia of all the 
Asiatic colonies, 387 A. C. Artaxerxes further demanded, and obtain- 
ed for his allies the Athenians, the islands of Scyros, Lemnos, and Im- 
bro3 : a disgraceful treaty j a mortifying picture of the humiliation of 
the Greeks. 



ANCIENT HISTORY, 35 

SECTION XIV. 
THE REPUBLIC OF THEBES, 

1. While Athens and Sparta were thus visibly tending to decline, 
the Theban republic emerged from obscurity, and rose for a time 
to a degree of splendour eclipsing all its contemporary states. The 
republic was divided by faction, one party supporting its ancient de- 
mocracy, and the other aiming at the establishment of an oligarchy. 
The latter courted the aid of the Spartans, who embraced that occa- 
sion to take possession of the citadel. Four hundred of the exiled 
Thebans lied for protection to Athens. Among these was Pelopidas, 
who planned and accomplished the deliverance of his country. Dis- 
guising himself and twelve of his friends as peasants, he entered 
Thebes in the evening, and joining a patriotic party of the citizens, 
they surprised the heads of the usurpation amid the tumult of a feast, 
and put them all to death. Epaminondas, the friend of Pelopidas, 
shared with him in the glory of this enterprise: and attacking, with 
the aid of 5,000 Athenians, the Lacedaemonian garrison, drove them 
entirely out of the Theban territory. 

2. A war necessarily ensued between Thebes and Sparta, in which 
the former had the aid of Athens. This, however, was but for a sea- 
son. Thebes singly opposed the power of Sparta, and the league of 
Greece : but Epaminondas and Pelopidas were her generals. The 
latter, amidst a career of glory, perished in an expedition against 
the tyrant of Pheraea. Epaminondas, triumphant at Leuctra and Man- 
tinea, fell in that last engagement, and with him expired the glory of 
nis country, 363 A. C. Athens and Sparta were humbled at the battle 
of Mantinea. Thebes was victorious ; but she was undone by the death 
of Epaminondas. All parties were tired of the war ; and Artaxerxes, 
more powerful among those infatuated states than in his own domin- 
ions, dictated the terms of the treaty. It was stipulated that each 
power should retain what it possessed ; and that the less states, now 
tree from the yoke of the greater, should remain so. 



SECTION XV. 

PHILIP OF MACEDON. 

1. Greece was now in the most abject situation. The spirit ot 
patriotism appeared utterly extinct, and military glory at art end. 
Athens seemed to have lost all ambition; the pleasures of luxury had 
entirely supplanted heroic virtue ; poets, musicians, sculptors, and 
comedians, were now the only great men of Attica. Sparta, no les« 
changed from the. simplicity of its ancient manners, and its pcw^r 
abridged by the new independency of the states of Peloponnesus, 
was in no capacity to attempt a recovery of its former greatness. In 
this situation Philip of Macedon formed the ambitious project of bi ingo- 
ing under his dominion the whole of Greece. 

2. He had mounted the throne of Macedon by popular choice, in 
violation of the natural right of the nearer heirs to the crown ; and 
he secured his power by the success of his arms against the Illyrians* 
Paeonians, and Athenians, who espoused the interest of his competitors. 
Uniting to great military talents the most consummate artifice and ad* 



S6 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

dress, he had his pensionaries in all the states of Greece, who direct- 
ed to his advantage every public measure. The miserable policy 
of these states, embroiled in perpetual quarrels, co-operated with hia 
designs. A sacrilegious attempt of the rhocians to plunder the tem- 
ple of Delphos excited the sacred war, in which almost all the repub- 
lics took a part. Philip's aid being courted by the Thebans and 
Thessalians, he began hostilities by invading Phocis, the key to the 
territory of Attica. iEschines. the orator, bribed to his interest, at 
tempted to quiet the alarms cf the Athenians, by ascribing to Philip 
a design only of punishing sacrilege, and vindicating the cause ol 
Apollo. Demosthenes, with true patriotism, exposed the artful de- 
signs of the invader, and with the most animated eloquence roused 
his countrymen to a vigorous effort for the preservation of their nat- 
ural liberties. But tlie event was unsuccessful The battle of Che- 
ronaaa, fought 337 A. C, decided the fate of Greece, and subjected all 
the states to the dominion of the king of Macedon. But it was not 
his policy to treat them as a conquered people. They retained theii 
separate and independent governments, while he controlled and direct 
ed all the national measures. Convoking a general council of the states, 
Philip was appointed commander in chief of the forces of the nation ; 
and he laid before them his project for the conquest of Persia, ap- 
pointing each republic to furnish its proportional subsidies. On the 
eve of this great enterprise Philio was assassinated by Pausanias. a 
captain of his guards, in revenge ot a private injury, 336 A. C. Tne 
Athenians, on the death of Philip, meanly expressed the most tumul 
tuous joy, in the hope of a recovery of their liberty ; but this vision- 
ary prospect was never realized. The spirit of the nation was gone ; 
and in their subsequent revolutions they only changed theii masters. 



SECTION XVI. 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 

1. Alexander, the son of Philip, succeeded at the age of twenty to 
the throne of Macedon, and, after a few successful battles against the 
revolted states, to the command of Greece. Assembling the deputies 
of the nation at Corinth, he communicated to them his resolution of 
prosecuting the designs of his father for the conquest of Persia. 

2. With an army of 30,000 foot, and 5,000 horse, the sum of 70 tal- 
ents, and provisions only for a single month, he crossed the Hellespont , 
and in traversing Phrygia visited the tomb of Achilles. Darius Co 
domanus, resolved to crush at once this inconsiderate "youth, met him 
on the banks of the Granicus with 100,000 foot and 10,000 horse. 
The Greeks swam the river, their king leading the van, and, attack- 
ing the astonished Persians, left 20,000 dead upon the field, and put to 
tlight their whole army. Drawing from his first success a presage 
of continued victory, Alexander now sent home his fleet, leaving to 
his army the sole alternative, that they must subdue Asia or perish. 
Prosecuting their course for some time without resistance, the Greeks 
were attacked by the Persians in a narrow valley of Cilicia, near the 
town of Issus. The Persian host amounted to 400,000 ; but their sit- 
uation was such that only a small part could come into action, and 
they were defeated with prodigious slaughter. The loss of the Per- 
sians in this battle was 110,000 ; that of the Greeks (according to Q,. 
Curtius) only 450. 



ANCIENT HISTROY. 87 

3. The history of Alexander by Quintus Curtius, though a mosf 
elegant composition, is extremely suspicious on the score of authen- 
tic information. Arrian is the best authority. 

44 The generosity of Alexander was displayed after the battle of 
IssusY in his attention to his noble prisoners, the mother, the wife. 
and family of Darius. To the credit of Alexander it must be owned 
that humanity, however overpowered, and at times extinguished by 
his passions, certainly formed a part of his natural character. 

5. The consequence of the battle of Issus was the submission of 
all Syria. Damascus, where Darius had deposited his chief treasures- 
was betrayed and given up by its governor. The Phoenicians were 
pleased to see themselves thus avenged for the oppression which they 
had suffered under the yoke of Persia. 

6. Alexander had hitherto borne his good fortune with moderation. 
Felix, says Curtius, si liac continentia ad ultimum vitce perseverare po4- 
uisset ; sed nondum Fortuna se animo ejus infuderat.* He directed his 
course towards Tyre, and desired admittance to perform a sacrifice 
to Hercules. The Tyrians shut their gates, and maintained for seven 
months a noble defence. The city was at length taken by storm, 
and the victor glutted his revenge by the inhuman massacre of 8,000 
of the inhabitants. The late of Gaza, gloriously defended by Betis, was 
equally deplorable to its citizens^ and more disgraceful to the con- 
queror. Ten thousand of the former were sold into slavery, and its 
brave defender dragged at the wheels of the victor's chariot : Glori- 
ante rege, Achillem, a quo genus ipse deduceret, imitatum se esse, poena 
in hostem capiendaj Curtius. 

7. The taking of Gaza opened Egypt to Alexander, and the whole 
country submitted without opposition. The course he now pursued 
demonstrated that in his conquests he followed no determined plan. 
Amidst the most incredible fatigues, he led his army through the 
deserts of Lybia, to visit the temple of his father, Jupiter Amman. On 
his return he built Alexandria, at the mouth of the Nile, afterwards the 
capital of the Lower Egypt, and one of the most flourishing cities in 
the world. Twenty other cities of the same name were reared by 
him in the course of his conquests. It is such works as these that 
justly entitle the Macedonian to the epithet of Great. By rearing 
in the midst of deserts those nurseries of population and of industry, 
he repaired the waste and havoc of his conquests. Except for those 
monuments of his glory, he would have merited no other epithet 
than that assigned him by the brahmins of India, The Mighty Murderer. 

8 Returning from Egypt, Alexander traversed Assyria, and was 
met at Arheda DV Darius, at the head of 700,000 men. The Persian 
had profferebT peace, consenting to yield the whole country from the 
Euphrates to the Hellespont, to give Alexander his daughter in mar- 
riage, and the immense sum of 10,000 talents. But these terms 
were haughtily rejected, and peace ottered only upon the unqualified 
submission of his enemy. The Persians were defeated at Arbela, 
with the loss of 300,000 men. Darius lied from province to province. 
At length betrayed by Bessus, one of his own satraps, he was cruelly 
murdered; and the Persian empire, which had subsisted for 206 
years from the time of Cyrus the great, submitted to the conqueror, 

k)«jvj A. C 

^ ^ * Happy if he could have persevered in this temperance to the end of 

his life, but Fortune had not yet poisoned hi3 mind. 

t The king boasting that he imitated Achilles, from whom he supp«*e4 
himself descended, in the infliction of this punishment upon hia 
D 



38 ANCIENT H1STOKY 

9. Alexander now projected the conquest of lndia ? firmly persuad- 
ed that the gods had decreed him the sovereigntist the whole hab- 
itable globe. He penetrated to the Ganges, and would have pro 
ceeded to the eastern ocean, if the spiriftrf his army had kept pace 
with his ambition. But his troops, seeing no end to their toils, refus- 
ed to proceed. He returned to the Indus, whence sending round his 
fleet to the Persian gulf under Nearclras, he marched his army 
across the desert to Persepolis. 

10. Indignant that he had found a limit to his conquests, he abandoned 
himself to every excess of luxury and debauchery. The arrogance 
of his nature, and the ardour of his passions, heightened by continual 
intemperance, broke out into the most outrageous excesses of cruelty, 
for which, in the few intervals of sober reflection, his ingenuous 
mind suffered the keenest remorse. From Persepolis he returned 
to Babylon, and there died in a fit of debauch, in the thirty-third year 
of histrge, and thirteenth of his reign, 324 A. C. 

11. Of the character of Alexander the most opposite and contra- 
dictory estimates have been formed. While by some he is esteemed 
nothing better than a fortunate madman, he is by others celebrated 
for the grandeur, wisdom, and solidity of his political views. Truth 
is rarely to be found in extreme censure or applause. We may al- 
low to Alexander the spirit and the talents of a great military genius, 
without combining with these the sober plans of a profound politician. 
In a moral view of his character, we see an excellent and ingenuous 
nature corrupted at length by an unvarying current of success, and a 
striking example of the fatal violence of the pasdons, when eminence 
of fortune removes all restraint, and flattery stimulates to their un 
controlled indulgence. 



SECTION XVII. 

SUCCESSORS OF ALEXANDER. 

1. Alexander, on his death-bed, named no successor, but gave his 
ring to Perdiccas, one of his officers. When his courtiers asked him 
to whom he Wished the empire to devolve upon his death, he replied, 
" To the most worthy ;" and he is said to have added, that he fore- 
saw this legacy would prepare for him very extraordinary funeral 
rites ; a prediction which was fully verified. 

2. Perdiccas, sensible that his pretensions would not justify a di- 
rect assumption of the government of this vast empire, brought about 
a division of the whole among thirty-three of the principal officers ; 
and trusting to their inevitable dissensions, he proposed by that means 
to reduce all of them under his own authority. Hence arose a series 
of wars and intrigues, of which the detail is barren both of amuse- 
ment and useful information. It is sufficient to say, that their conse- 
quence was a total extirpation of the family of Alexander, and a new 
partition of the empire into four great monarchies, the shares of 
Ptolemy, Lysimachus, Cassander, and Seleucus. Of these the most 
powerful were that of Syria under Seleucus and his descendants, and 
that of Egypt the Ptolemies. 

" We cannot (says Cond iliac) fix our attention on the history of 
the successors of Alexander, though a great theatre is opened to our 
view, a variety of scenes, and multiplied catastrophes. A picture is 
eilen displeasing from the very circumstance of its greatness. We 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 39 

lose the connexion of its parts, because the eye cannot take them in 
at once. Still less will a large picture give us pleasure, if every part 
of it presents a different scene, each unconnected with the other. v 
Such is the history of the successors of Alexander. 



SECTION XVIII. 



FALL AND CONQUEST OF GREECE. 

1. Nor is the history of Greece from the period of the death of Al- 
exander any longer an interesting or pleasing object of contemplation. 
Demosthenes once more made a noble attempt to vindicate the nation- 
al freedom, and to rouse his countrymen, the Athenians, to shake off 
the yoke of Macedon. But it was too late. The pacific counsels of 
Phocion suited better the languid spirit of this once illustrious people. 

2. The history of the different republics present from this time 
nothing but a disgusting series of uninteresting revolutions ; with the 
exception only of that last effort made by the Achaean states to re- 
vive the expiring liberty of their country. The republic of Achaia 
was a league of a few of the smaller states to vindicate their freedom 
against the domineering spirit of the greater. They committed the 
government of the league to Aratus of Sicyon, with the title of prae- 
tor, a young mui of high ambition, who immediately conceived the 
more extensive project of rescuing the whole of Greece from the 
dominion of Macedon. But the jealousy of the greater states render- 
ed this scheme abortive. Sparta refused to arrange itself under the 
guidance of the praetor of Achaia : and Aratus, forgetting his patriotic 
designs, sought only now to wreak his vengeance against the Lace- 
daemonians. For this purpose, with the most inconsistent policy, he 
courted the aid even of the Macedonians : the very tyrants who had 
enslaved his country. 

3. The period was now come for the intervention of a foreign 
power, which was to reduce all und-er its wide-spreading dominion. 
The Romans were at this time the most powerful of all the contem- 
porary nations. The people of Etolia, attacked by the Macedonians, 
with a rash policy besought the aid of the Romans, who, eager to 
add to their dominion this devoted country, cheerfully obeyed the 
summons, and speedily accomplished the reduction of Macedonia. 
Perseus, its last sovereign, was led captive to Rome, and graced the 
triumph of Paul us iEmilius, 167 A. C. From that period the Ro- 
mans were hastily advancing to the dominion of all Greece ; a prog 
ress in which their art was more conspicuous than their virtue. 
They gained their end by fostering dissensions between the states, 
which they directed to their own advantage, corrupting their princi- 
pal citizens, and using, in fine, every art of the most insidious policy. 
A pretext was only wanting to unsheath the sword, and this was 
furnished by the Achaean states, who insulted the deputies of imperi- 
al Rome. This drew on them at once the resentment of the Romans. 
Metellus marched his legions into Greece, gave them battle, and en- 
tirely defeated them. Mummius the consul terminated the work, 
and made an easy conquest of the whole of Greece, which from that 
period became a Roman province, under the name of Achaia, 146 A. C 

4. Rome had acquired from her conquests a flood of wealth, and 
began now to manifest a taste for luxury, and a spirit of refinement 



40 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

In these points Greece was to its conquerors an instructor and a 
model: 

Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit, et artes 
Intulit agresti Latio.* 

Hence, even though vanquished, it was regarded with a species of 
respect by its ruder masters. 



SECTION XIX. 

POLITICAL REFLECTIONS ARISING FROM THE HISTORY 
OF THE STATES OF GREECE. 

1. The revolutions which the states of Greece underwent, and the 
situations into which they were thrown by their connexion and differ- 
ences with each other, and their wars with foreign nations, were so 
various, that their history is a school of instruction in political science. 
The surest test of the truth or falsehood of abstract principles of pol- 
itics, is their application to actual experience and to the history of 
nations. 

2. The oppression which the states of Greece suffered under their 
ancient despots, who were subject to no constitutional control, was a 
most justifiable motive for their establishing a new form of govern- 
ment, which promised them the enjoyment of greatf r political free- 
dom. We believe too that those new forms of government were frarn- 
ed by their virtuous legislators in the true spirit of patriotism. But 
as to the real merits of those political fabrics, it is certain that they 
were very far from corresponding in practice with what was expect- 
ed from them in theory. We seek in vain, either in the history of 
Athens or Lacedaemon, for the beautiful idea of a well-ordered common- 
wealth. The revolutions of government which they were ever ex- 
periencing, the eternal factions with which they were embroiled, 
plainly demonstrate that there was a radical defect in the structure of 
the machine, which precluded the possibility of regular motion. The 
condition of the people under those governments was such as par- 
took more of servitude and oppression, than that of the subjects of the 
most despotic monarchies. The slaves formed the actual majority of 
the inhabitants in all the states of Greece. To these the free citi- 
zens were rigorous bond-masters. Bondage being a consequence of 
the contraction of debts even by freemen, a great proportion of these 
was subject to the tyrannical control of their fellow-citizens. Nor 
were the richer classes in the actual enjoyment of independence. 
They were perpetually divided into factions, which servilely ranked 
themselves under the banners of the contending chiefs of the repub- 
lic. Those parties were kept together solely by corruption. The 
whole was therefore a system of servility and debasement of spirit, 
which left nothing of a free or ingenuous nature in the condition of in- 
dividuals, nor any thing that could furnish encomium to a real advo- 
cate for the dignity of human nature. 

Such was the condition of the chief republics of antiquity. Their 
governments promised in theory, what they never conferred in prac- 
tice, the political happiness of the citizens. 

* For conquered Greece aubdued her conquering foe, 
And taught rude Rome, the arts of peace to koo\r. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 41 

3. " In democracy (says Dr. Fergusson) men must love equality ; 
they must respect the rights of their fellow-citizens ; they must be 
satisfied with that degree of consideration which they can procure by 
their abilities fairly measured against those of an opponent ; they 
must labour for the public without hope of profit : they must reject 
every attempt to create a personal dependance." This is the picture 
of a republic in theory. If we reverse this picture in every single 
particular, and take its direct opposite, we shall have the true por- 
trait of a republican government in practice. 

4. It is the fundamental theory of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, 
that the three distinct forms of government, the monarchical, despot - 
ical, and republican, are influenced by the three separate principles 
of honour, fear, and virtue ; and this theory is the foundation on 
which the author builds a great part of his political doctrines. That 
each of these principles is exclusively essential to its respective form 
of government, but unnecessary and even prejudicial in the others, is a 
position contrary both to reason and to truth. No form of govern- 
ment can subsist where every one of those principles has not its 
operation. The admission of such a theory leads to the most mis- 
chievous conclusions ; as, for example, that in monarchies the state 
dispenses with virtue in its officers and magistrates; that public 
employments ought to be venal; and that crimes, if kept secret, are 
of no consequence. 

5. It is only in the infant periods of the Grecian history that we 
are to look for those splendid examples of patriotism and heroic vir- 
tue, which the ardent mind of uncorrupted youth will ever delight 
to contemplate. The most remarkable circumstance which strikes 
us on comparing the latter with the more early periods of the his- 
tory of the Greeks, is the total change in the genius and spirit of the 
people. The ardour of patriotism, the thirst of military glory, the 
enthusiasm of liberty, decline with the rising grandeur and opulence 
of the nation, and an enthusiasm of another species, and far less 
worthy in its aim, succeeds : an admiration of the fine arts, a violent 
passion for the objects of taste, and for the refinements of luxury. 
This leads us to consider Greece in the light in which, after the loss 
of its liberty, it still continued to attract the admiration of other na- 
tions. 



SECTION XX. 
STATE OF THE ARTS IN GREECE. 

1. It is not among the Greeks that we are to look for the greatest 
improvements in the useful and necessary arts of life. In agricul- 
ture, manufactures, commerce, they never were greatly distinguish- 
ed. But in those which are termed the fine arts, Greece surpassed 
all the contemporary nations. The monuments of those which yet 
remain are the models of imitation, and the confessed standard of 
excellence, in the judgment of the most polished nations of modern 
times. 

2. After the defeat of Xerxes the active spirit of the Athenians, 
which would have otherwise languished for want of an object, taking 
a new direction from luxury, displayed itself signally in all the works 
of taste in the fine arts. The administration of Pericles was the aera 
of luxury and splendour. The arts broke out at once with surpris- 
ing lustre ; and architecture, sculpture, and painting, were carried 



42 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

to the summit of perfection. This golden age of the arts in Greece 
endured for about a century, till alter the death of Alexander the 
great 

3. The Greeks were the parents of that system of architecture 
which is universally allowed to be the most perfect. 

The Greek architecture consisted of three distinct orders : the 
Doric, the Ionic, and Corinthian. 

The Doric has a masculine grandeur, and a superior air of strength 
to both the others. It is therefore best adapted to works of great 
magnitude, and of a sublime character. The character of sublimity 
is essentially connected with chasteness and simplicity. Of this or- 
der is the temple of Theseus at Athens, built ten years after the bat- 
tle of Marathon, and at this day almost entire. 

The Ionic order is light and elegant. The former has a masculine 
grandeur; the latter a feminine elegance. The Ionic is likewise 
simple : for simplicity is an essential requisite in true beauty. Of 
this order were the temple of Apollo at Miletus, the temple of the 
Delphic oracle, and the temple of Diana at Ephesus. 

The Corinthian marks an age of luxury and magnificence, when 
pomp and splendour had become the predominant passion, but had not 
yet extinguished the taste for the sublime and beautiful. It attempts 
therefore a union of all these character's, but satisfies not the chasten- 
ed judgment, and pleases only a corrupted taste. 

First unadorned, 



" And ndbly plain, the manly Doric rose 

•' The Ionic then, with decent matron grace, 

" Her airy pillar heav'd ; luxuriant last 

u The rich Corinthian spread her wanton wreath." 

Thompson's Liberty, Part 2. 

4. The Tuscan and the Composite orders are of Italian origin. 
The Etruscan architecture appears to have been nearly allied to the 
Grecian, but to have possessed an inferior degree of elegance. The 
Trajan column at Rome is of this order; less remarkble for the 
beauty of its proportions than for the admirable sculpture which 
decorates it. The Composite order is what its name implies ; it shows 
that the Greeks had in the three original orders exhausted all the 
principles of grandeur and beauty ; and that it was not possible to 
frame a fourth, except by combining the former. 

5. The Gothic architecture oilers no contradiction to these obser- 
vations. The effect which it produces cannot be altogether account- 
ed for from the rules of symmetry or harmony in the proportions be- 
tween the several parts; but depends on a certain idea of vastness, 
gloominess, and solemnity, which are powerful ingredients in the 
sublime. 

6. Sculpture was brought by the Greeks to as high perfection as 
architecture. The remains of Grecian sculpture are at this day the 
most perfect models of the art ; and the modern artists have no means 
of attaining to excellence so certain, as the study of those great mas- 
ter-pieces. 

7. The excellence of the Greeks in sculpture may perhaps be 
accounted for chiefly from their having the human figure often before 
their eyes quite naked, and in all its various attitudes, both in the 
palcestra, and in the public games. The antique statues have there- 
fore a grandeur united with perfect simplicity, because the attitude is 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 43 

not the result of an artificial disposition of the figure, as in the mod- 
ern academies, but is nature unconstrained. Thus, in the Dying 
Gladiator, when we observe the relaxation of the muscles, and the 
visible failure of strength and life, we cannot doubt that nature was 
the sculptor's immediate model of imitation.* 

8. And this nature was in reality superior to what we now see in 
the ordinary race of men. The constant practice of gymnastic ex- 
ercises gave a finer conformation of body than what is now to be found 
in the vitiated pupils of modern effeminacy, the artificial children of 
modern fashion. 

9. A secondary cause of the eminence of the Greeks in the arts of 
design, was their theology, which furnished -an ample exercise for 
the genius of the sculptor and painter. 

10. We must speak with more diffidence of the ability of the 
Greeks in painting, than we do of their superiority in sculpture j be- 
cause the existing specimens of the former are extremely rare, and 
the pieces which are preserved are probably not the most excellent. 
But in the want of actual evidence we have every presumption that 
the Greeks had attained to equal perfection in the art of painting and 
in sculpture ; for if we find the judgment given by ancient writers of 
their excellence in sculpture confirmed by the universal assent of the 
best critics among the moderns, we have every reason to presume an 
equal rectitude in the judgment which the same ancient writers have 
pronounced upon their paintings. If Pliny is right in his opinion of 
the merits of those statues which yet remain, the venus of Praxiteles, 
and the Laocoonof Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, we have 
no reason to suppose his taste to be less just when he celebrates the 
merits, and critically characterizes the different manners of Zeuxis, 
Apelles, Parrhasius, Protogenes, and Timanthes, whose works have 
perished. 

11. The paintings found in Herculaneum, Pompeii, the Sepul* 
chrum Nasonianum at Rome, were probably the work of Greek 
artists ; for the Romans were never eminent in any of the arts de- 
pendent on design. These paintings exhibit great knowledge ol 
proportions, and of the chiaro-oscuro ; but betray an ignorance of 
the rules of perspective. 

12. The music of the ancients appears to have been very greatly 
inferior to that of the moderns. 

13. The peculiar genius of the Greeks in the fine arts extended its 
effects to the revolutions of their states, and influenced their fate as a 
nation. 

SECTION XXI. 

OF THE GREEK POETS. 

1. The Greeks were the first who reduced the athletic exercises 
to a system, and considered them as an object of general attention and 
importance. The Panathenaean, and afterwards the Olympic, the 
Pythian, Nemaean, and Isthmian games, were under the regulation 
of the laws. They contributed essentially to the improvement of the 
nation ; and, while they cherished martial ardour, and promoted har- 

* Cresilas vulneratum deficientem fecit, ex quo possit intelligi quantum 
rttstet animi. Plin. lib. 36. Cresilas has represented a wounded mail 
fainting, from which we may perceive how much life still remains. 



44 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

diness and agility of body, they cultivated likewise urbanity and po« 
liteness. 

2. The games of Greece were not confined to gymnastic or athlet- 
ic exercises. They encouraged competitions in genius and learning. 
They were the resort of the poets, the historians, and the philosophers. 

3. In all nations, poetry is of greater antiquity than prose composi- 
tion. The earliest prose writers in Greece, Pherecydes of Scyros, 
and Cadmus of Miletus, were 350 years posterior to Homer. Any 
remains of the more ancient poets, as Linus, Orpheus, &c, are ex- 
tremely suspicious. Homer is generally supposed to have flourished 
about 907 A. C. ; to have followed the occupation of a wandering 
minstrel, and to have composed his poems in detached fragments, 
and separate ballads, and episodes. Fisistratus, about 540 A. C., em- 
ployed some learned men to collect and methodize these fragments; 
and to this we owe the complete poems of the Iliad and Odyssey. 
The distinguishing merits of Homer are, his profound knowledge of 
human nature, his faithful and minute description of ancient man- 
ners, his genius for the sublime and beautiful, and the harmony of 
his poetical numbers. His fidelity as a historian has been questioned • 
but the great outlines of his narrative are probably authentic. 

4. Hesiod was nearly contemporary with Homer : we should be 
little sensible of his merits, if they were not seen through the medi- 
um of an immense antiquity. The poem of the Works and Days 
contains some judicious precepts of agriculture. The Theogony is 
an obscure history of the origin of the gods, and the formation of the 
universe. 

5. About two centuries after Homer and Hesiod, flourished Archi- 
lochus, the inventor of Iambic verse ; Terpander, equally eminent 
as a poet and a musician ; Sappho, of whose composition we have 
two exquisite odes ; Alcaeus and Simonides, of whom there are some 
fine fragments ; and Pindar and Anacicon, who have left enough to 
allow an accurate estimate of their merits. 

6. Pindar was esteemed by the ancients the chief of the lyric poets. 
He possesses unbounded fancy, and great sublimity of imagery ; but 
his digressions are so rapid and so frequent, that we cannot discover 
the chain of thought ; and his expression is allowed, even by Longinus, 
to be often obscure and unintelligible. 

7 Anacreon is a great contrast to p indar. His fancy suggests only 
familiar and luxurious pictures. He has no comprehension of the 
sublime, but contents himself with the easy, the graceful, and the 
wanton. His morality is loose, and his sentiments little else than the 
effusions of a voluptuary. 

8. The collection termed Anthologia, which consists chiefly of an- 
cient epigrams, contains many valuable specimens of the taste and 
poetnal fancy of the Greeks, and contributes materially to the illus- 
tration of their manners. The best of the modern epigrams may be 
traced to this source. 

9. The aera of the origin of dramatic composition among the Greeks 
is about 590 A. C. Thespis was contemporary with Solon. Within 
little more than a century, the Greek drama was carried to its high- 
est perfection, for iEschylus died 45G A. C. JEschylus wrote sixty- 
six tragedies ; for thirteen of which he gained the first prize of dra- 
matic poetry at the Olympic games. Like Shakspeare, his genius is 
sublime, and his imagination unbounded. He disdained regularity of 
plan, and all artificial restriction; but unfortunately he disdained 
likewise the restraints of decency and of good morals. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 45 

10. Euripides arid Sophocles flourished about fifty rears after 
^chylug. Euripides is most masterly in painting the passion of love, 
both m its tendered emotions and in its most violent paroxysms- vet 
the characters of his women demonstrate that he had no great opinion 
of the virtues of the sex. Longinus does not rate high his talent for 
the sublime. But he possessed a much superior excellence : his verses 
with great eloquence and harmony, breathe the most admirable mo' 

Er& a - T a rema ! n . u tw ? nt y tragedies of Euripides; and of these, 
the Medea is deemed the best. ' 

1 1 . Sophocles shared with Euripides the palm of dramatic poetrv • 
and is judged to have surpassed him in the grand and the sublime. Of 
1 ^U tragedies which he composed, only seven remain. They displav 
£J! a r knowledge °f the , hum an heart, and a general chastity and 
smiplicity of expression, which gave the greater force to the occasional 
strokes of the sublime. The Oedipus of Sophocles is esteemed the 
most perfect production of the Greek stage. 

12. The Greek comedy is divided into the ancient, the middle, and 
trie new. The first was a licentious satire and mimicry of real per- 
sonages, exhibited by name upon the stage. The laws repressed this 
extreme license, and gave birth to the middle comedy, which continued 
the satirical delineation ol real persons, but under fictitious names, 
Ihe last improvement consisted in banishing all personal satire, and 
confining comedy to a delineation of manners. This was the new 
comedy. Of the first species, the ancient, we have no remains. The 
dramas ot Aristophanes are an example of the second or middle 
comedy lhe grossness of his raillery, and the malevolence which 
frequently inspired it, are a reproach to the morals of that people 
which could tolerate it. Yet his works have their value, as throwine 
light upon ancient manners. * 

13. Of the new comedy, Menander was the bright example : pos- 
sessing a vein of the most delicate wit, with the utmost purity ot 
moral sentiment. Unfortunately we have nothing of him remaining 
but a few fragments preserved by Athenaeus. We see a great deal of 
his merits, however, in his copyist and translator, Terence. 

r Li uu 01 ? 18 ' ^^ in the Greek and Roman theatres, wore masks, 
ot which the features were strongly painted,-and the mouth so con- 
structed as to increase the power of the voice. It is probable that the 
tragedy and comedy of the Greeks and Romans were set to music, 
and sung, like the recitative in the Italian opera. Sometimes one 
person was employed to recite or sing the part, and another to per- 
form the corresponding action or gesticulation. 

15. The mimes were burlesque parodies on the serious tragedy 
and comedy The pantomimes consisted solely of gesticulation, and 
were earned to great perfection. 

SECTION XXII. 
OF THE GREEK HISTORIANS. 

1. The most eminent of the Greek historians were contempora- 
ries. Herodotus died 413 A. C. ; Thucydides 391 A. C. ; and Xeno- 
phon was about twenty years younger than Thucydides, Herodotus 
writes the joint history of the Greeks and Persians, from the time of 
Cyrus, to the battles of Plataea and Mycale. He treats incidentally 
likewise of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Medes, and Lydians. His vera- 
city is to be depended on in all matters that fell under his own obser- 



46 

vation; but he admits too easily the reports of others, and is in gen 

eral fond of the marvellous. His style is pure, and he has a copious 

6 3? Thucydides, himself an able general, has written, with great abil- * 
itv, the history of the first twenty-one years of the Peloponnesian 
war; introducing it with a short narrative of the preceding periods 
of the history of Greece. He is justly esteemed for his fidelity and 
candour. His style is a contrast to the full and flowing period of 
Herodotus, possessing a sententious brevity, which is at once lively 
and energetic. The history of the remaining six years of the war 
of Peloponnesus was written by Theopompus and Xenophon. 

3 Xenophon commanded the Greek army in the service of Cyrus 
the younger, in his culpable enterprise against his brother Artaxerx- 
es. (See Sect XIII, § 6.) After the failure of this enterprise Xeno- 
phon directed that astonishing retreat from Babylon to the Euxme, 
of which he has given a splendid and faithful narrative. He wrote 
likewise the Cyropedia, or the history of the elder Cyrus, which 
is belived to be rather an imaginary delineation of an accomplished 
prince than a real narration. He continued the history of Ihucyd- 
&es and has left two excellent political tracts on the constitutions of 
Lacedaemon and Athens. His style is simple and energetic; but the 
brevity of his sentences sometimes obscures his meaning. 

4. Greece, in its decline, produced some historians of great em 
inence. Polybius, a native of Megalopolis, wrote forty books of the 
Roman and Greek history during his own age ; that is, from the be- 
cinnine of the second Punic war to the reduction of Macedonia into 
I Roman province ; but of this great work, only the first five books 
are entire, with an epitome of the following twelve. He merits less 
the praise of eloquence than of authentic information, and most judi- 
cious reflection. . , ^^ 

5 Diodorus Siculus flourished in the time of Augustus, and compos- 
ed, in forty books, a general history of the world, under the title of 
Bibliotheca Historica. No more remain than fifteen books ; of which 
the first five treat of the fabulous periods, and the history of the Egyp- 
tians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, &c. prior to the Trojan war. 1 he 
next five are wanting. The remainder brings down the history from 
the expedition of Xerxes into Greece till after the death of Alexander 
the great. He is taxed with chronological inaccuracy in the earlier 
parts of his work; but the authenticity and correctness of the later 
periods are unimpeached. . " . 

6 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, eminent both as a historian andrhet 
orician, flourished in the age of Augustus. His Roman Antiquities 
contain much valuable information, though bis work is too mucfc 
tinctured with the spirit of systematizing. _ , 

7 Plutarch, a native of Cheronea, in Bceotia, flourished in the 
reign of Nero. His Lives of Illustrious Men is one of the most val- 
uable of the literary works of the ancients ; introducing us to an 
acquaintance with the private character and manners of those eminent 
persons whose public achievements are recorded by professed his- 
torians. His morality is excellent ; and his style, though unpolished, 
is clear and energetic. 

8 Arrian wrote, in the reign of Adrian, seven bo . - •• ■»•«- **<»- «-1 
Alexander, with great judgment and fidelity; hi -y— .« - trsHj 
composed on the authority of AnsLobulus and Ptolemy, two of 
Alexander's principal officers. His style is unadorned, but chaste, 
perspicuous, and manly. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 47 



SECTION XXIII. 



OF THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS. 

1. After the time of Homer and Hesiod, the increasing relish for 
poetical composition gave rise to a set of men termed rhapsodists, 
whose employment was to recite at the games and festivals the com- 
positions of the older poets, and to comment on their merits and ex- 
plain their doctrines. Some of these, founding schools of instruction, 
were dignified by their pupils with the epithet of Sophists, or teach- 
ers of wisdom. 

2. The most ancient school of philosophy was that founded by 
Thales, 640 A. C, and termed the tonic. Thales is celebrated for 
his knowledge of geometry and astronomy. His metaphysical doc- 
trines are imperfectly known. He taught the belief of a first cause, 
and an over-ruling providence ; but supposed the Divinity to animate 
the universe, as the soul does the body. The moral doctrines of the 
Ionic school were pure and rational. The most eminent of the dis- 
ciples of Thales were Anaximander and Anaxagoras. 

3. Soon after the Ionic, arose the Italian sect, founded by Pythag- 
oras, who was born about 586 A. C. He is supposed to have derived 
much of his knowledge from Egypt ; and he had, like the Egyptian 
priests, a public doctrine for the people, and a private for his disci- 
ples ; the former a good system of morals, the latter probably unin- 
telligible mystery. His notions of the Divinity were akin to those ol 
Thales ; but he believed in the eternity of the universe, and its co- 
existence with the Deity. He taught the transmigration of the soul 
through different bodies. His disciples lived in common ; abstained 
rigorously from the flesh of animals ; and held music in high estima- 
tion, as a corrective of the passions. Pythagoras believed the earth 
to be a sphere, the planets to be inhabited, and the fixed stars to be 
the suns and centres of other systems. His most eminent followers 
were Empedocles, Epicharmus, Ocellus Lucanus, Timaeus, Archytas, 

4. The Eleatic sect was founded by Xenophanes, about 500 A. C. 
Its chief supporters were Parmenides, Zeno, and Leucippus, citizens 
of Elea. The metaphysical notions of this sect were utterly unintel- 
ligible. They maintained that things had neither beginning, end, 
nor any change ; and that all the changes we perceive are in our 
own senses. Yet Leucippus taught the doctrine of atoms, whence 
he supposed all material substances to be formed. Of this sect were 
Democritus and Heraclitus. 

5. The Socratic school arose from the Ionic. Socrates died 401 
A. C, the wisest, the most virtuous of the Greeks. He exploded the 
futile logic of the Sophists, which consisted of a set of general argu- 
ments, applicable to all manner of questions, and by which they could, 
with an appearance of plausibility, maintain either side of any prop- 
osition. Socrates always brought his antagonist to particulars ; be- 
ginning with a simple and undeniable position, which being granted, 
another followed equally undeniable, till the disputant was conduct- 
ed step by step, by his own concessions, to that side of the question 
on which lay the truth. His rivals lost all credit as philosophers, but 
had influence to procure the destruction of the man who had expos- 
ed them. The doctrines of Socrates are to be learned from Plato 
and Xenophon. He taught the belief of a first cause, whose benefit 



ANCIENT. 1 HISTORY. 

cence is equal to his power, the Creator and Ruler of the universe. 
He inculcated the moral agency of man, the immortality of the soul, 
and a future state of reward and punishment. He exploded the 
polytheistic superstitions of his country, and thence became the 
victim of an accusation of impiety. (See Section Xlll, §5.) 

6 The morality of Socrates was successfully cultivated by the 
Cvrenaic sect, but was pushed to extravagance by the Cynics. Vir- 
tue, in their opinion, consisted in renouncing all the conveniences ol 
life They clothed themselves in rags, slept and ate m the streets, 
or wandered about the country with a stick and a knapsack. 1 hey 
condemned all knowledge as useless They associated impudence 
with ignorance, and indulged themselves in scurrility and invective 

W 7. The Megarian sect was the happy inventor of logical syllogism, 

0r 8 th pia r to°was U1 the m fouRder of the Academic sect : a philosopher, 
whose doctrines have had a more extensive empire over the J minds 
of mankind, than those of any other among the ancients. This is in 
part owing to their intrinsic merit, and in part to the eloquence with 
which they have been propounded. Plato had the most sublime 
Seas of the Divinity and his attributes. He taught hat the human 
soul was a portion of the Divinity, and that this alliance with the 
eternal mind micht be improved into actual intercourse with the 
SupreL Be4V abstracting the soul from all the corruptions 
Which it derives from the body : a doctrine highly flattering to the 
pride of man, and generating that mystical enthusiasm which hasth* 
most powerful empire over a warm imagination. 

9 The Platonic philosophy found its chief opponents in tour ^re 
markable sects, the Peripatetic, the Sceptic, the Stoic, and the bpi- 

CU ia n Aristotle, the founder of the Peripatetic sect, was the tutor of 
Alexander the great, and established his school in the Lyceum at 
Athens: a philosopher whose tenets have found more zealous parti- 
zans and more rancorous opponents, than those ot any other. Hib 
Metaphysics, from the sententious brevity of his expression, are ex- 
tSy^ure, and have given rise to.numberless commentaries 
The best analysis of his doctrines is given by Dr. Reid, m Lord 
Ka^es'sSketclLs of the History of Man. His physical works are 
the result of great observation and acquaintance with nature; anu his 
crfticTwrUbgs, as his Poetics and Art of Rhetoric, display both taste 
and internem- The peculiar passion of Aristotle was that of classi- 
fvinf arranging, and combining the objects of his knowledge, so as to 
reduce all toalw principles f a very dangerous propensity m phi. 

wfedom There was, in their opinion, no essential difference be- 
toeen vice anTvirtne further than as human compact had discnm- 
mateS them. Tranquillity of mind they supposed to be the state of 
Selreateit happiness, and this was to be attained by absolute mdrf- 

of mind, took a n'oEle? pat! to arrive at it. They e^voured^ to 
raise themselves above all the passions ana ^^l} 1 ^^ 
They believed all nature, and God himself, the soul ol the univeise, 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 49 

to be regulated by fixed and immutable laws. The human soul be- 
ing a portion of the Divinity, man cannot complain of being actuated 
by that necessity which actuates the Divinity himself. His pains and 
his pleasures are determined by the same laws which determine his 
existence. Virtue consists in accommodating the disposition of the 
mind to the immutable laws of nature ; vice in opposing those laws : 
vice therefore is folly, and virtue the only true wisdom. A beautiful 
picture of the Stoical philosophy is found in the Meditations of M. 
Aurelius Antoninus. (See Madan's Translation.) 

13. Epicurus taught that man's supreme happiness consisted in 
pleasure. He limited the term, so as to make it mean only the prac- 
tice of virtue. But if pleasure is allowed to be the object, every 
man will draw it from those sources which he finds can best supply 
it. It might have been the pleasure of Epicurus to be chaste and 
temperate. We are told that it was so. But others find their pleas- 
ure in intemperance and luxury, and such was the taste of his princi- 
pal followers. Epicurus held that the Deity was indifferent to all the 
actions of man. His followers therefore had no other counsellor 
than their own conscience, and no other guide than the instinctive 
desire of their own happiness. 

14. The Greek philosophy, on the whole, affords little more than 
a picture of the imbecility and caprice of the human mind. Its 
teachers, instead of experiment and observation, satisfied themselves 
with constructing theories ; and these wanting fact for their basis, 
have only served to perplex the understanding, and retard equally 
the advancement of sound morality and the progress of useful knowl- 
edge. 

SECTION XXIV. 
THE HISTORY OF ROME. 

1. In the delineation of ancient history, Rome, after the conquest 
of Greece, becomes the leading object of attention. The history of 
this empire^ in its progress to universal dominion, and afterwards in its 
decline^ and fall, involves a collateral account of all the other na- 
tions of antiquity, which in those periods are deserving of our con- 
sideration. 

2. Though we cannot determine the sera when Italy was first peo- 
pled, yet we have every reason to believe that it was inhabited by 
a refined and cultivated nation, many ages before the Roman name 
was known. These were the Etruscans, of whom there exist at 
this day monuments in the fine arts, which prove them to have been 
a splendid, luxurious, and highly polished people. — Their alphabet, 
resembling the Phoenician, disposes us to believe them of eastern 
origin. The Roman historians mention them as a powerful and opu- 
lent nation long before the origin of Rome ; and Dionysius of Hali- 
carnassus deduces most of the religious rites of tne Romans from 
Etruria. 

3. The rest of Italy was divided among a number of independent 
tribes or nations, comparatively in a rude and uncultivated state ; 
Umbrians, Ligurians, Sabines, Veientes, Latins, iEqui, Volsci, &c. 
Latium, a territory of fifty miles in length and sixteen in breadth, 
contained forty-seven independent cities or states. 

4. The origin of the city and state of Ron^ is involved in great 
uncertainty. Dionysius supposes two cities of that name to have 



&0 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

existed, and to have perished before the foundation of the city built 
by Romulus. The vulgar account of the latter is, that it waa 
founded 752 A. C. by a troop of shepherds or banditti, who peo- 
pled their new city by carrying off the wives and daughters of their 
neighbours, the Sabines. 

5. The great outlines of the first constitution of the Roman govern- 
ment, though generally attributed to the political abilities of Romu- 
lus, seem to have a natural foundation in the usages of barbarous 
nations. Other institutions bear the traces of political skill and posi- 
tive enactment. 

6. Romulus is said to have divided his people into three tribes, and 
each tribe into ten curice. The lands he distributed into three por- 
tions ; one for the support of the government, another for the main- 
tenance of religion, and the third for the use of the Roman citizens, 
which he divided into equal portions of two acres to each citizen. 
He instituted a senate of 100 members (afterwards increased to 200,) 
who deliberated on and prepared all public measures for the assembly 
of the people, in whom was vested the right of determination. The 
partrician families were the descendants of those centum patres {hun- 
dred/cithers). 

7. The king had the nomination of the senators, the privilege ol 
assembling the people, and a right of appeal in all questions of im- 
portance. He had the command of the army, and the office of pan- 
tifex maximus {high priest). He had, as a guard, twelve lictors, and 
a troop of horsemen named celeres, or equites, afterwards the distinct 
order of Roman knights. These regulations are of positive institu- 
tion : others arose naturally from the state of society. 

8. The patriapotestas {paternal autlwrity) is of the latter nature, be- 
ing common to all barbarous tribes. The limitation of all arts to the 
slaves arose from the constant employment of the citizens in warfare 
or in agriculture. 

9. The connexion of patron and client was an admirable institu- 
tion, which at once united the citizen?, and maintained a useful sub- 
ordination. 

10. The Sabines were the most formidable enemy of the early 
Romans ; and a wise policy united for a while the two nations into 
one state. After the death of Romulus, who reigned thirty-seven 
years, Numa, a Sabine, was elected king. His disposition was pious 
and pacific, and he endeavoured to give his people the same charac- 
ter. He pretended to divine inspiration, to give the greater authori- 
ty to his laws, which in themselves were excellent. He multiplied 
the national gods, built temples, and instituted different classes of 
priests, Jlamines, salii, &c, and a variety of religious ceremonies. 
The flamines officiated each in the service of a particular deity ; the 
salii guarded the sacred bucklers ; the vestals cherished the sacred 
fire ; the augurs and aruspices divined future events from the flight 
of birds, and the entrails of victims. The temple of Janus was open 
in war. and shut during peace. Numa reformed the calendar, regu- 
lating (he year at twelve lunar months, and distinguished the days 
for civil occupation {fasti) from those dedicated to religious rest 
(nefasti). Agriculture was lawful on the latter, as a duty of religion. 
Numa reigned forty-three years. 

11. Tullus Hostilius, the third king of Rome, of warlike disposi- 
tion, subdued the Albans, Fidenates, and other neighbouring states. 
The Sabines, now disunited from the Romans, were among the most 
powerful of their enemies. Tullus reigned thirty three yeare. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 51 

12. Ancus Martius, the grandson of Numa, was elected king on 
the death of Tullus. He inherited the piety and virtues of his grand- 
father, and joined to these the talents of a warrior. He increased 
the population of Rome, by naturalizing some of the conquered 
states ; enlarged and fortified the city, and built the port of Ostia at 
the mouth of the Tiber. He reigned gloriously twenty-four years. 

13. Tarquinius Priscus, a citizen of Corinth, popular from his 
wealth and liberality, was elected to the vacant throne. He enlaFg- 
ed the senate by 100 new members from the plebeian families, patres 
minorum gentium {the fathers of the less families). This body consisted 
now of 300, at which number it remained for some centuries. Tar- 
quin was victorious in his wars, and adorned and improved the city 
with works of utility and magnificence. Such were the circus or 
hippodrome, the walls of hewn stone ; the capitol ; the cloacae, those 
immense common sewers, which lead to the belief that the new 
Rome had been built on the ruins of an ancient city of greater mag- 
nitude. Tarquinius was assassinated in the thirty-eighth year of his 
reign. 

14. Servius Tullius, who had married the daughter of Tarquinius, 
secured, by his cwn address and the intrigues of his mother-in-law, 
his election to the vacant throne. He courted popularity by acts of 
munificence ; discharging the debts of the poor, dividing among the 
citizens his patrimonial lands, improving the city with useful edifices, 
and extending its boundaries. The new arrangement which he in- 
troduced in the division of the Roman citizens is a proof of much po- 
litical ability, and merits attention, as on it depended many of the 
revolutions of the republic. 

15. From the time that the Romans had admitted the Albans and 
Sabines to the rights of citizens, the urban and rustic tribes were 
composed of those three nations. Each tribe being divided into ten 
curia, and every curia having an equal vote in the comitia, as each 
individual had in his tribe, all questions were decided by the majority 
of suffrages. There was no pre-eminence between the curies, and 
the order in which they gave their votes was determined bv lot. 
This was a reasonable constitution, so long as the fortunes of the 
citizens were nearly on a par ; but, when riches came to be une- 
qually divided, it was obvious that much inconvenience must have 
arisen from this equal partition of power, as the rich could easily, by 
bribery, command the suffrages of the poor. Besides, all the taxes 
had hitherto been levied by the head, without any regard to the in- 
equality of fortunes. These obvious defect? furnished to Servius a 
just pretext for an entire change of system. His plan was, to remove 
the poorer citizens from all share" of the government, while the 
burdens attending its support should fall solely on the rich. 

16. All the citizens were required, under a heavy penalty, to de- 
clare upon oatli their names, dwellings, number of their children, 
and amount of their fortune. x\fter this numeration or census, Ser- 
vius divided the whole citizens, without distinction, into four tribes, 
named, from the quarters where they dwelt, the Palati?ie, Suburran, 
Collatine, and Esquiline. Beside this local division, Servius distribut- 
ed the whole people into six classes, and each class into several 
centuries or portions of citizens so called, not as actually consisting 
of a hundred, but as being obliged to furnish and maintain 100 men 
in time of war. In the first class, which consisted of the richest citi- 
zens, or those who were worth at least 100 mince (about 300/. ster- 
ling), there were no less than ninety-eight centuries. In the second 



52 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

class (those worth 75 mince) there were twenty-two centuries. In 
the third (those worth 50 mince) were twenty centuries. In the 
fourth (those worth 25 mince) twenty-two centuries. In the fifth 
(those worth 12 mince) thirty centuries. The sixth, the most nu- 
merous of the whole, comprehending all the poorer citizens, furnish- 
ed only one century. Thus the whole Roman people were divided 
into 193 centuries, or portions of citizens, so called, as furnishing 
each a hundred soldiers. The sixth class was declared exempt from 
taxes. The other classes, according to the number of centuries of 
which they consisted, were rated for the public burdens at so much 
for each century. 

17. The poor had no reason to complain of this arrangement; but 
something was wanting to compensate the rich for the burdens to 
which they were subjected For this purpose Servius enacted, that 
henceforth the comiiia should give their votes by centuries ; the first 
class, consisting of ninety-eight centuries, always voting first. Thus, 
though the whole people were called to the comiiia, and all seemed 
to have an equal suffrage, yet in reality the richer classes determin- 
ed every question, the suffrage of the poor being merely nominal; 
for as the whole people formed 193 centuries, and the first and second 
classes contained 120 of these, if they were unanimous, which gen- 
erally happened in questions of importance, a majority was secured. 
Thus, in the comiiia ccntwriata (assemblies in which the people voted by 
centuries), in which the chief magistrates were elected, peace and 
war decreed, and all other important business discussed, the richer 
classes of the citizens had the sole authority, the votes of the poor 
being of no avail. And such was the ingenuity of this policy, that all 
were pleased with it : the rich paid their taxes with cheerfulness, as 
the price of their power; and the poor gladly exchanged authority 
for immunities. 1 he census, performed every five years, was closed 
by a lustrum, or expiatory sacrifice ; and hence that period of time 
was called a lustrum. 

18. Servius was assassinated, after a reign of forty-four years, by 
his infamous daughter Tullia, married to Tarquinius, the grandson 
of Priscus, who thus paved the way for his own elevation to the 
throne. The government of Tarquin, surnamed the proud, was sys- 
tematically tyrannical. He ingratiated himself with the lower orders, 
to abase by their means the power of the higher ; but, insolent, ra- 
pacious, and cruel, he finally disgusted all ranks of his subjects. A 
rape committed by his son Sextus on Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus, 
who, unable to survive her dishonour, stabbed herself in presence of 
her husband and kindred, roused their vengeance, and procured, by 
their influence with their countrymen, the expulsion of the tyrant, 
and the utter abolition of the regal dignity at Rome, 509 A. C. 

Reflections on tlie Government and State of Rome during the period of 

the kings. 

19. The whole structure of the constitution of the Romans under 
the monarchy has been by most authors erroneously attributed ex- 
clusively to the abilities of Romulus, a youth of eighteen, the leader 
of a troop of shepherds or banditti. This chimerical idea we owe tc 
Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The truth is, the Roman government, 
like almost every other, was the gradual result of circumstances; 
the fruit of time, and of political emergency. 

20. The constitution of the Roman senate has occasioned consider* 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 63 

able research, and is not free from obscurity. It is probable that the 
kings had the sole right of naming the senators, that the consuls suc- 
ceeded them in this right, and afterwards, when these magistrates 
found too much occupation from the frequent wars in which the state 
was engaged, that privilege devolved on the censors. The senators 
were at first always chosen from the body of the patricians, but after- 
wards the plebeians acquired an equal title to that dignity. In the 
early periods of the republic the people could not be assembled but 
by the senate's authority ; nor were the plebiscita {decrees of the peo- 
ple) of any weight till confirmed by their decree. Hence the early 
constitution of the republic was rather aristocratical than democrat- 
ical. From this extensive power of the senate the first diminution 
was made by the creation of the tribunes of the people ; and other 
retrenchments successively took place, till the people acquired at 
length the predominant power in the state. Yet the senate, even 
after every usurpation on their authority, continued to have, in many 

Eoints, a supremacy. They regulated all matters regarding religion; 
ad the custody of the public treasure ; superintended the conduct of 
all magistrates ; gave audience to ambassadors ; decided on the fate of 
vanquished nations ; disposed of the governments of the provinces ; 
and took cognizance, by appeal, in all crimes against the state. In 
great emergencies tney appointed a dictator, with absolute authority. 

21. At the period of the abolition of the regal government the ter- 
ritory of the Romans was extremely limited. The only use which 
they made of their victories was to naturalize the inhabitants of 
some of the conquered states, and so increase their population. Thus, 
their strength being always superior to their enterprise, they laid a 
solid foundation for the future extension of their empire. 

22. In the accounts given by historians of the strength of the ar- 
mies, both of the Romans in those early times, and of the neighbour- 
ing states, their enemies, we have every reason to believe there is 
much exaggeration. The territories from which those armies were 
furnished were incapable of supplying them. 

23. In the continual wars in which the republic was engaged the 
Romans were most commonly the aggressors. The causes of this 
seem to have been the ambition of the consuls to distinguish their 
short administration by some splendid enterprise, and the wish of the 
senate to give the people occupation, to prevent intestine disquiets. 

24. The regal government subsisted 244 years, and in that time 
only seven kings reigned, several of whom died a violent death. 
These circumstances throw doubt on the authenticity of this period 
of the Roman history. It is allowed that there were no historians fof 
the five first centuries after the building of Rome. The first is 
Fabius Pictor. who lived during the second Punic war. Livy says 
mat almost all the ancient records were destroyed when Rome was 
taken by the Gauls. 



SECTION XXV. 

ROME UNDER THE CONSULS. 

1 . The regal government being abolished, it was agreed to commit 

the supreme authority to two magistrates, who should be annually 

elected by the people from the patrician order. To these they gave 

the names of consules ; " a modest title, (says Vertot), which gave to 

E 2 



64 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

understand that they were rather the counsellors of the republic than 
its sovereigns ; and that the only point which they ought to have in 
view was its preservation and glory." But, in fact, their authority 
differed scarcely in any thing from that of the kings. They had 
the supreme administration of justice, the disposal of the public 
money ? the power of convoking the senate and assembling the peo- 
ple, raising armies, naming all the officers, and the right of making 
peace and war. The only difference was, that their authority wua 
limited to a year. 

2. The first consuls were Brutus and Collatinus (the husband of 
Lucretia). Tarquin was at this time in Etruria, where he got two of 
the most powerful cities, Veii and Tarquinii, to espouse his cause. 
He had likewise his partisans at Rome, and a plot was formed to 
open the gates to receive him. It was detected, and Brutus had 
the mortification to find his two sons in the number of the conspira- 
tors. He condemned them to be beheaded in his presence. Exuit 
patrein ut consulem ageret ; orbusque vivere, quam publicce vindictce deesse 
maluit. Val. Max. He ceased i<j be a father, that he might execute the 
duties of a consul ; and chose to live childless rather tlian to neglect the 
public punishment of a crime. 

3. The consul Valerius, successful in an engagement with the ex- 
iled Tarquin, was the first Roman who enjoyed the splendid reward 
of a triumph. Arrogant from his recent honours, his popularity be- 
gan to decline , and, in a view of recovering it, he proposed the law, 
termed from him the Valerian, which " permitted any citizen who 
had been condemned to death by a magistrate, or even to banish- 
ment or scourging, to appeal to the people, and required their con 
sent previously to the execution of the sentence.'" This law gave 
the first blow to the aristocracy in the constitution of the Roman re- 
public. 

4. For thirteen years after the expulsion of Tarquin, the Romans 
were involved in continual wars en his account. Of these the most 
remarkable was the war with the Etrurians, under Porsena ; a war 
fertile in exploits of romantic heroism. 

5. Soon after this period began those domestic disorders, which 
continued long to embroil the republic. Great complaints had arisen 
among the poorer classes of the citizens, both on account of the ine- 
quality of property, from the partial distribution of the conquered 
lands, which the higher ranks generally contrived to engross to them- 
selves, and from the harsh policy by which it was in the power of 
creditors to reduce to a state of slavery their insolvent debtors. As 
there was no legal restraint on usury, "the poor, when once reduced 
to the necessity of contracting debts!! were left entirely at the mercy 
of their creditors. These grievances, ielt in common by a large pro- 
portion of the citizens, excited much discontent, which, from com- 
plaints long disregarded, grew at length into a spirit of determined 
resistance. The wars required new levies, and the plebeians posi- 
tively refused to enrol their names, unless the senate should put an 
end to their oppression, by decreeing at once an abolition of all the 
debts due by tne poor to the rich. The emergency was critical, as 
the enemy was at the gates of Rome. The consuls found their au- 
thority of no avail ; for the Valerian law had given any citizen con- 
demned by them a right of appeal to the people. An extraordinary 
measure was necessary, and a dictator was created for the first time , 
a magistrate who, for the period of six months, was invested with 
absolute and unlimited authority. Lartius, nominated to this high 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 6b 

office, armed the twenty-four lictors with axes, summoned the whole 
people to the comitia, and calling over the names, under the penalty 
of death to any citizen who should dare to murmur, enrolled all such 
as he judged most fit for the service of their country. This expedi- 
ent became henceforward a frequent and certain resource in all sea- 
sons of public danger. 

6. The death of Tarquin removed one check against the tyranny 
of the higher over the lower orders ; for the latter had hitherto kept 
alive a salutary apprehension, that, in case of extreme oppression, 
they would be under the necessity of calling back their king. When 
this fear was at an end, the domineering spirit of the patricians, ex- 
ceeding every bound both of good policy and humanity, drove the 
people at length to deeds of mutiny and rebellion. An alarm froa 
the enemy gave full weight to their power, and made the chief magia 
trates of the state solemnly engage their honour to procure a re» 
dress of their grievances, as soon as the public danger was at an end. 
The promise, either from a failure of will or of power, was not fuk 
filled, and this violation of faith drove the people at length to ex • 
tremities. Bound by their military oath not to desert their standards, 
they carried them along with them ; and the whole army, in military 
array, withdrew from Rome, and deliberately encamped on the Mons 
Sacer, at three miles distance from the city ; and here they were soon 
joined by the greater part of the people. This resolute procedure 
had its desired effect. The senate deputed ten persons, the most re- 
spectable of their order, with plenary powers; and these, seeing no 
medium of compromise, granted to the people all their demands. 
The debts were solemnly abolished ; and, for the security of their 
privileges in future, they were allowed the right of choosing magis- 
trates of their own order, wha should have the power of opposing 
with effect every measure which they should judge prejudicial to 
their interests. These were the tribunes of the people, chosen annu- 
ally ; at first five in number, and afterwards increased to ten. With- 
out guards or tribunal, and having no seat in the senate-house, they 
had yet the power, by a single veto, to suspend or annul the decrees 
of the senate and the sentences of the consuls. Their persons were 
declared sacred, but their authority was confined to the limits of a 
mile from the city. The tribunes demanded and obtained two magis- 
trates to assist them, who were termed aediles, from the charge com- 
mitted to them of the buildings of the city. 

7. From this aera (2G0 years from the foundation of Rome) we date 
the commencement of the popular constitution of the Roman repub- 
lic: a change operated by the unwise policy of the patricians them- 
selves, who, by yielding to just complaints, and humanely redressing 
flagrant abuses, might have easily anticipated every ground of dis- 
satisfaction. The first wish of the people was not power, but relief 
from tyranny and oppression ; and if this had been readily granted 
them by abolishing the debts, or at least by repressing enormous 
usury, and putting an end to the inhuman right of corporal punish- 
ment and the bondage of debtors, the people would have cheerfully 
returned to order and submission, and the Roman constitution would 
have long remained aristocratical, as we have seen it was at the com- 
mencement of the consular government. But the plebeians having 
now obtained magistrates of their own order with those high powers, 
we shall see it become the object of those magistrates to increase 
their authority by continual demands and bold encroachments. The 
people, regarding them as the champions of their rights, are delight- 



56 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

ed to find themselves gradually approaching to a level with the 
higher order ; and, no longer bounding their desires to ease and se- 
curity, are soon equally influenced by ambition as their superiors. 
While this people, borne down by injustice, seek no more than the 
redress of real grievances, we sympathize with their feelings, and 
applaud their spirited exertions. But when they had at length com- 
passed the end which they wished, obtained ease and security, nay, 
power which they had neither sought nor expected ; when we see 
them, after this, increasing in their demands, assuming that arrogance 
which they justly blamed in their superiors, goaded on by the am- 
bition of their leaders to tyrannize in their turn ; we view with 
proper discrimination the love of liberty and its extreme licentious- 
ness ; and treat with just detestation the authors of those pernicious 
measures, which embroiled the state in endless faction, and paved the 
way for the total loss of that liberty, of which this deluded people 
knew not the value when they actually possessed it. 



SECTION XXVI. 

THE LAW OF VOLERO. 

1. The disorders of the commonwealth, appeased by the creation 
of the tribunes, were but for a time suspended. It was necessary 
that the popular magistrates should make an experiment of their 
powers. In an assembly of the people one of the consuls, interrupt- 
ed by a tribune, rashly said, that if the tribunes had called that assem 
bly, he would not have interrupted them. This was a concession on 
the part of the consuls, that the tribunes had the power of assem- 
bling the comitia, which, from that moment, they assumed as their 
acknowledged right. It was a consequence of this right, that the 
affairs of the commonwealth should be agitated in those meetings, 
equally as in the assemblies held in virtue of a consular summons, or 
senatorial decree, and thus there were, in a manner, two distinct 
legislative powers established in the republic. 

2. The trial of Conolanus for inconsiderately proposing the. aboli- 
tion of the tribunate, an offence interpreted to be treason against the 
state, threw an additional weight into the scale of the people. The 
proposal of an agrarian law, for the division of the lands acquired by 
recent conquests, resumed at intervals, though neve) earned into 
execution, inflamed the passions of the rival orders. 

3. Publius Volero, formerly a centurion, and a man distinguished 
for hks military services, had, in the new levies, been ranked as a 
common soldier. Complaining of this unmerited degradation, he re- 
fused his services in that capacity ; and the consuls having con- 
demned him to corpora! punishment, he appealed from their sen- 
tence to the people. The contest lasted till the annual term of elec- 
tions, when Voiero himself was chosen a tribune of the people. He 
had an ample revenge, by procuring the enactment of a most impor- 
tant law. The comitia by centuries and by curias could be called 
only in virtue of a decree of the senate, after consulting the auspices; 
and in those comitia the tribunes had hitherto been elected, and the 
most important public affairs discussed. It was decreed by the law 
of Volero, that the election of the tribunes should be made, and the 
chief public business henceforward discussed, in the comitia held by 
tribes, which were unfettered by any of those restraints. From this 



ANCIENT HISTORY. bl 

period the supreme authority in the Roman republic may be consid- 
ered aa having passed completely from the higher order into the 
hands of the people. The Roman constitution was now plainly a 
democracy, 471 A. C. 



SECTION XXVII. 

THE DECEMVIRATE. 

1. The Romans had, till this period, no body of civil laws. — Under 
the regal government the kings alone administered justice; the 
consuls succeeded them in this high prerogative, and thus possessed 
without control the absolute command of the fortunes and civil rights 
of all the citizens. To remedy this great defect, Terentillus, a tri- 
bune, proposed the nomination of ten commissioners, to frame and 
digest a code of laws for the explanation and security of the rights 
of all orders of the state. A measure so equitable ought to have met 
with no opposition. It was, however, strenuously opposed by the 
patricians, who, by a fruitless contest, only exposed their own weak- 
ness. The decemviri were chosen ; but the election being made in 
the comitia by centuries, the consul Appius Claudius, with his col- 
league, were at the head of this important commission. The laws 
were framed, those celebrated statutes known by the name of the 
Twelve Tables, which are the basis of the great structure of the 
Roman jurisprudence, 451 A. C. 

2. An acquaintance with these ancient laws is therefore of impor- 
tance. Even in the most flourishing times of the republic they con- 
tinued to be of the highest authority. They have the encomium of 
Cicero himself; and we learn from him, that to commit these laws 
to memory was an essential part of a liberal education. From the 
twelve tables the jurisconsulti composed a system of judicial forms, 
for the regulation of the different tribunals. The number of the 
laws was likewise from time to time increased by the senatusconsuUa 
and plebiscita. 

3. The decemvirs were invested with all the powers of govern- 
inent, for the consulate had ceased on their creation. Each decem- 
vir by turn presided for a day, and had the sovereign authority, with 
its insignia, the fasces. The nine others officiated solely as judges 
in the determination of lawsuits, and the correction of abuses. An 
abuse, however, of the most flagrant nature, committed by the chief 
of their own number, was destined speedily to bring their office to 
its termination. 

4. Appius Claudius, inflamed by lawless passion for the young 
Virginia, the betrothed spouse of Icilius, formerly a tribune of the 
people, employed a profligate dependant to claim the maiden as his 
own property, on the false pretence of her being the daughter of 
one of his female slaves. The claim was made to the decemvir 
himself in judgment, who pronounced an infamous decree, which 
tore from her family this helpless victim, and put her into the hands 
of his own minion. Her father, to save the honour of his child, 
plunged a dagger into her breast ; and the people, witnesses of this 
shocking scene, would have massacred Appius on the spot, if he had 
not found means to escape amidst the tumult Their vengeance, 
however, was satiated by the instant abolition of this hated magis- 
tracy, and by the death of Appius, who chose by his own hand to 

8 



68 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

j>reyent the stroke of the executioner. The decemvirate had sub- 
sisted for three years. The consuls were now restored, together 
with the tribunes of the people, 449 A. C. 

SECTION XXVIII. 
INCREASE OF THE POPULAR POWER. 

1 . The scale of the people was daily acquiring weight, at the ex- 
pense of that of the highest order. Two barriers, however, still 
separated the patricians and plebeians: one, a law which prevented 
their intermarriage, and the other, the constitutional limitation of all 
the higher offices to the order of the patricians. It was only neces- 
sary to remove these restrictions, and the patricians and plebeians 
were on a footing of perfect equality. The first, after a long but 
fruitless contest, was at length agreed to by the senate ; and this 
concession had its usual effect of stimulating the people to inflexible 
perseverance in their struggle for the latter. On an emergence oi 
war the customary device was practised, of refusing to enter the 
rolls, unless upon the immediate enactment of a law, which should 
admit their capacity of holding all the offices of the republic. The 
senate sought a palliative, by the creation of six military tribunes in 
lieu of the consuls, three of whom should be patricians, and three 
plebeians. This measure satisfied the people for a time : the consuls, 
however, were soon restored. 

2. The disorders of the republic, and frequent wars, had inter 
rupted the regular survey of the citizens. This was remedied by 
the creation of a new magistracy. Two officers, under the title oi 
censors, were appointed (437 A. CX whose duty was not only to 
make the census every rive years, but to inspect the morals, and 
regulate the duties of all the citizens : an office of dignity equal to 
its importance, exercised, in the latter times of the republic, only by 
consular persons, and afterwards annexed to the supreme functions 
of the emperors. 

3. The dissensions between the orders continued, with little varia- 
tion either in their causes or effects. The people generally, as the 
last resource, refused to enrol themselves, till overawed oy the 
supreme authority of a dictator. To obviate the frequent necessity 
of this measure, which enforced at best an unwilling and compelled 
obedience, the senate had recourse to a wise expedient ; this was, 
to give a regular pay to the troops. To defray this expense a mod- 
erate tax was imposed in proportion to the fortunes of the citizens. 
From this period the Roman system of war assumed a new aspect. 
The senate always found soldiers at command ; the army was under 
its control ; the enterprises of the republic were more extensive, 
and its successes more signal and important. Veii, the proud rival 
of Rome, and its equal in extent and population, was taken by Camil- 
lus, after a siege of ten years, A. if. C. 396. The art of war was 
improved, as it now became a profession, instead of an occasional 
occupation. The Romans were, from this circumstance, an over- 
match for all their neighbours. Their dominion, hitherto confined 
to the territory of a few miles, was now rapidly extended. It was 
impossible but that the detached states of Italy must have given way 
before a people who were always in arms, and, by a perseverance 
alike resolute and judicious, were equal to every attempt in which 
they engaged. 



AINC1ENT HISTORY. 59 

4. The taking of Veii was succeeded by a war with the Gauls. 
This people, a branch of the great nation of the Celtae, had opened 
to themselves a passage through the Alps at four different periods, 
and were at this time established in the country between (hose 
mountains and the Appenines. Under the command of Brennus they 
laid siege to the Etruscan Clusium ; and the people, of no warlike 
lurn themselves, solicited the aid of the Romans. The circumstan- 
ces recorded of this war with the Gauls throw over it a cloud of 
table and romance. The formidable power of Rome is said to have 
been, in a single campaign, so utterly exhausted, that the Gauls en- 
tered the city without resistance, and burnt it to the ground, 385 A. 
C. Though thus overpowered, the Romans, in a single engagement, 
retrieve all their losses, and m one day's time there is not a Gaul 
left remaining within the Pioman territory. 

To the burning of the city by the Gauls, the Roman writers attri- 
bute the loss of all the records and monuments of their early history. 

5. It is singular, that most of the Roman revolutions should have 
owed their origin to women. From this cause we have seen spring 
the abolition of the regal office and the decemvirate. From this 
cause arose the change of the constitution, by which the plebeians 
became capable of holding the highest offices of the commonwealth. 
The younger daughter of Fabius Ambustus, married to a plebeian, 
envious ol the honours of her elder sister, the wife of a patrician, 
stimulated her father to rouse the lower order to a resolute purpose 
of asserting their equal right with the patricians to all the offices and 
dignities of the state. After much turbulence and contest the final 
issue \v as the admission of the plebeians, first to the consulate, and 
afterwards to the censorship, the praetorship, and priesthood (A. U. 
C. 454, and A. C. 300) . a change beneficial in the main, as consoli- 
dating the strength of the republic, and cutting off the principal source 
of intestine disorder. The factions of the state had hitherto confined 
the growth of its power, its splendour, and prosperity ; for no state 
can at once be prosperous and anarchical. We shall now mark the 
rapid elevation of the Roman name and empire. 



SECTION XXIX. 

CONQUEST OF ITALY BY THE ROMANS. 

1. The war with the Samnites now began, and was of long contin- 
uance ; but its successful termination was speedily followed by the 
reduction of all the states of Italy. In the course of this important 
war the Tarentines, the allies of the Samnites, sought the aid ol 
Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, one of the greatest generals of his age. Pyrr- 
hvis landed in Italy with 30,000 men and a train of elephants, 280 A. 
C. He was at first successful, but no longer so than till a short ex- 
perience reconciled the Romans to a new mode of war. Sensible at 
length of # the difficulties of his enterprise, and dreading a fatal issue, 
he embraced an invitation from the Sicilians to aid them in a war 
with Carthage. On this pretext, which at least was not dishonoura- 
ble, Pyrrhus withdrew his troops from Italy. In this interval the 



Romans reduced to extremity the Samnites, the Tarentines, and the 
other allied states. Pyrrhus returned, and made a last effort near 
Beneventum. He was totally defeated, lost 26,000 men, and aban- 
doning at once all further views to Italy, returned with precipitation 



60 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

to his own dominions, 274 A. C. The hostile slates submitted to the 
victorious power; and Rome, 480 years from the foundation of the 
city, was now mistress of all Italy. 

2. The policy observed by the Romans, with respect to the con- 
quered nations, was wise and judicious. They; removed to Rome 
all the leading men of the principal conquered cities, admitting them 
into the ancient urban and rustic tribes, and thus soothing the pride of 
the vanquished, by giving them an apparent share in their own do- 
mestic government; while, in arranging the constitution of the cities, 
they filled their magistracies with illustrious Romans, whose abilities 
and influence were fitted to maintain those new provinces in alle- 
giance to the Roman government. 

3. Sicily had long been considered the granary of Italy. The 
Carthaginians at this time possessed considerable settlements in the 
island, and were ambitious of acquiring its entire dominion. An ob- 
vious policy led the Romans to dispute with them this important ac- 
quisition, and gave rise to the Punic wars. This leads, by a natural 
connexion, to a short view of the history of Carthage and of Sicily 



SECTION XXX. 

HISTORY OF CARTHAGE. 

1. Carthage, according to the most probable accounts, was founded 
by a colony of Tyrians, about seventy years before the building of 
Rome. The colony had the same language, the same or nearly 
similar laws and constitution, the same national character, with the 
parent state. The city of Carthage was, at the period of' the Punic 
wars, one of the most splendid in the world, and had under its domin 
ion 300 of the smaller cities of Africa bordering on the Mediterranean 
sea. 

2. The constitution of the republic is celebrated by Aristotle as 
one of the most perfect of the governments of antiquity ; but we 
know little more fhan its general nature from ancient writers. Two 
magistrates, named suffctcs, annually chosen, seem to have possessed 
powers akin to those of the Roman consuls ; and the Carthaginian 
senate to those of the senate of Rome ; with this remarkable differ- 
ence, that, in the former, unanimity of opinion was requisite in all 
measures of importance. A divided senate transmitted the business 
to the assembly of the people. A tribunal of 104 judges took cog- 
nizance of military operations, and of the conduct of their generals. 
A superior council ol five seems to have controled the decisions of 
the larger tribunal. Two peculiarities of the Carthaginian policy 
have been censured by Aristotle. One peculiarity was, that the same 
person might hold several employments or offices in the state ; the 
other that the poor were debarred from all offices of trust or import- 
ance. But the former of these is frequently both expedient and 
necessary, and the latter seems agreeable to the soundest policy ; foi 
in offices of trust poverty offers too powerful an incitement to devia- 
tion from duty. 

3. The first settlements made by the Carthaginians were entirely 
in the way of commerce. Trading to the coast of Spain for gold, 
they built Carthagena and Gades : and coasting along the western 
shore of Africa, they had establishments for the same purpose as far 
as the 25th degree of north latitude. The Periplus of Hanno affor<i9 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 61 

a proof of ardent enterprise and policy. Desirous of extending a 
limited territory they armed against the Mauritanians, Numidians, 
and all the neighbouring nations; employing mercenary troops, 
which they levied, not only in Africa, but in Spain, the two Gauls, 
and Greece. 

4. The annals of the Carthaginian state are little known till their 
wars with the Romans. The first of their wars mentioned in history 
is that with the Greek colonies of Sicily. Darius courted their alli- 
ance when he meditated the conquest of Greece ; and Xerxes re- 
newed that treaty when he followed out the designs of his father. 



SECTION XXXI. 

HISTORY OF SICILY. 

1. The early periods of the history of Sicily are as little known a9 
those of Carthage. The Phoenicians had sent colonies to Sicily be- 
fore the Trojan war. The Greeks, in after times, made considerable 
settlements in the island. The Corinthians founded Syracuse, which 
became the most illustrious of the Greek cities of Sicily- and from 
Syracuse arose afterwards Agrigentum, Acra, Casmene, Camarene, 
and several other Sicilian towns 

2. The government of Syracuse was monarchical, and might have 
long remained so, if all its sovereigns had inherited the abilities and 
virtues of Gelon. But his successors, exercising the worst of tyran- 
Qy, compelled their subjects at length to abolish the regal govern- 
ment ; and their example was speedily followed by all the Grecian 
states of Sicily. 

3. The monarchy of Syracuse, however, was revived about sixty 
years after in the person of Dionysius, a man of obscure origin, but 
of signal ability. Twice expelled for a tyrannical exercise of domin- 
ion, he as often found means to overpower his enemies, and re-estab- 
lish himself in the throne. At his death the crown passed, without 
opposition, to his son, Dionysius the younger, a weak and capricious 
tyrant, whom his subjects judging unworthy to reign, dethroned and 
banished, 357 A. C. The crown was conferred on Dion, his brother- 
in-law, whose amiable character rendered him the delight of his 
people. But after a short reign this prince fell a victim to treason. 
Aided by the distractions of Syracuse consequent on this event, Dio- 
nysius remounted the throne ten years after his expulsion ; but his 
tyrannical disposition, heightened by his misfortunes, became at 
length so intolerable, that he was expelled a second time, and 
banished to Corinth, where he ended his days in poverty and obscurity. 
The author of this revolution was the illustrious Timoleon, to 
whose abilities and virtues his country owed equally its liberty and 
its subsequent happiness and prosperity, 343 A. C. 

The signal opposition of national character between the Romans 
and the Carthaginians may be easily explained, when we attend to 
the effects of a commercial life on the genius and manners of a nation. 
The vices of a commercial people are selfishness, cunning, avarice, 
with an absence of every heroic and patriotic virtue. The favoura- 
ble effects of commerce are industry, frugality, general courtesy of 
manners, improvement in the useful arts. Attending to these conse- 



«2 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

qences of the prevalence of the commercial spirit, we shall see the 
principal features of the Carthaginian character opposed to the 
Roman. 



SECTION XXXII. 

THE PUNIC WARS. 

1. The triumph which the Romans had obtained over Pvrrhu9 
seemed to give assurance of success in any enterprise in whicn they 
should engage. The Mamertines, a people of Campania, obtained 
aid from the Romans in an unjustifiable attempt which they made to 
seize Messina, a Sicilian town allied to Syracuse. The Syracusans, 
at first assisted by the Carthaginians, opposed this invasion ; but the 
former, more alarmed by the ambitious encroachments of the Car- 
thaginians on Sicily, soon repented of this rash alliance, and joined 
the Romans in the purpose of expelling the Carthaginians entirely 
from the island. In fact the Sicilians seem to have had only the des- 
perate choice of final submission either to Rome or Carthage. 
They chose the former, as the alternative least dishonourable. The 
Romans had ever been their friends, the Carthaginians their enemies. 

2. Agrigentum, possessed by the Carthaginians, was taken, after 
a long siege, by the joint forces of Rome and Syracuse. A Roman 
fleet, the first which they ever had, was equipped in a few weeks, 
and gained a complete victory over that of Carthage, at this time the 
greatest maritime power in the world, 260 A. C. These successei 
were followed by the reduction of Corsica and Sardinia. In a second 
naval engagement the Romans took from the Carthaginians sixty of 
their ships of war, and now resolutely prepared for the invasion of 
Africa. The consul Regulus commanded the expedition. He ad- 
vanced to the gates of Carthage ; and such was the general constep* 
nation that the enemy proposed a capitulation. Inspirited, however, 
by a timely aid of Greek troops under Xantippus, the Carthaginians 
made a desperate effort, and, defeating the Roman army, made Regu- 
lus their prisoner. But, repeatedly defeated in Sicily, they were at 
length seriously desirous of a peace ; and the Roman general was 
sent with their ambassadors to Rome to aid the negotiation, under a 
solemn oath to return to Carthage as a prisoner, if the treaty should 
fail. It was rejected at the uigent desire of Regulus, who thus sac- 
rificed his life to what he judged the interest of his country. 

3. Lilybceum, the strongest of the Sicilian towns belonging to 
Carthage, was taken after a siege of nine years. After some alter- 
nate successes two naval battles won by the Romans terminated the 
war, and Carthage at last obtained a peace on the humiliating terms 
of abandoning to the Romans all her possessions in Sicily, the pay- 
ment of 3,200 talents of silver, the restitution of all prisoners without 
ransom, and a solemn engagement never to make war against Syra- 
cuse or her allies. The island of Sicily was now declared a Roman 
province, though Syracuse maintained its independent government, 
A. U. C. 511, and A. C. 241. 

4. The peace between Rome and Carthage was of twenty-three 
years' duration. The latter power was recruiting its strength, and 
meditated to revenge its losses and disgrace, The second Punic war 
began on the part of the Carthaginians, who besieged Saguntum, a 
city of Spain, in alliance with the Romans. The young Hannibal 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 63 

took Saguntum after a siege of seven months ; the desperate inhabi 
tants setting fire to the town, and perishing amidst the flames. Han- 
nibal now formed the bold design of carrying the war into Italy. He 
STOvided against every difficulty, gained to his interest a part of the 
alhn tribes, passed the Pyrenees, and finally the Alps,* in a toil- 
some march of five months and a half from his leaving Carthagena, 
and arrived in Italy with 20,000 foot and 6,000 horse. 

5. In the first engagement the Romans were defeated. They also 
lost two other important battles at Trebia, and the lake Thrasyme- 
nus. In the latter of these the consul Flaminius was killed, and his 
army cut to pieces. Hannibal advanced to Cannae in Apulia, where 
the Romans opposed him with their whole force. A memorable 
defeat ensued, in which 40,000 Romans were left dead upon the 
field, and among these the consul iEmilius, and almost the whole 
body of the knights. If Hannibal had taken advantage of this great 
victory, by instantly attacking Rome, the fate of the republic was 
inevitable; but he deliberated, and the occasion was lost. The 
Romans concentrated all their strength. Even the slaves armed in 
the common cause, and victory once more attended the standards of 
the republic. Philip, king of Macedon, joined his forces to the 
Carthaginians, but, defeated by Levinus, speedily withdrew his as- 
sistance. Hannibal retreated before the brave Marcellus. Syracuse 
had now taken part with Carthage, and thus paved the way "for the 
loss of its own liberty. Marcellus besieged the city, which was long 
defended by the inventive genius of Archimedes ; but was taken in 
the third year by escalade in the night. This event put an end to 
the kingdom of Syracuse, which now became a part of the Roman 
province of Sicily, A. U. C. 542, A. C. 212. 

6. While the war in Italy was prosperously conducted by the 
great Fabius, who, by constantly avoiding a general engagement, 
Found the true method of weakening his enemy, the younger Scipio 
accomplished the entire reduction of Spain. Asdrubai was sent 
into Italy to the aid of his brother Hannibal, but was defeated by 
the consul Claudius, and slain in battle. Scipio, triumphant in Spain, 
passed over into Africa, and carried havoc and devastation to the 
gates of Carthage. Alarmed for the fate of their empire the Car- 
thaginians hastily recalled Hannibal from Italy. The battle of 
Zema decided the fate of the war, by the utter defeat of the Cartha- 
ginians. They entreated a peace, which the Romans gave on these 
conditions : that the Carthaginians should abandon Spain, Sicily, and 
all the islands; surrender all their prisoners, give up the whole of 
their fleet except ten gallies, pay 10,000 talents, and, in future., 
undertake no war without consent of the Romans, A. U. C. 552, A. 
C. 202. 

7. Every thing now concurred to swell the pride of the conquer- 
ors, and to extend their dominion. A war with Philip of Macedon 
was terminated by his defeat ; and his son Demetrius was sent to 
Rome as a hostage for the payment of a heavy tribute imposed on 
the vanquished. A war with Antiochus, king of Syria, ended in 
his ceding to the Romans the whole of the Lesser Asia. But these 
splendid conquests, while they enlarged the empire, were fatal to its 

* The passage of Hannibal over the Alps has been lately illustrated, 
m a most learned and ingenious essay, by Mr. Whitaker (the celebrated 
historian of Manchester, and vindicator of Queen Mary), who has, with 
great acuteness, traced every step of the Carthaginian general, from his 
crossing the Rhone to his final arrival in Italy. 



64 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

virtues, and subversive of the pure and venerable simplicity of 
ancient times. 

8. The third Punic war began A. U. C. 605, A. C. 149, and ended 
in the ruin of Carthage. An unsuccessful war with the Numidians 
had reduced the Carthaginians to great weakness, and the Romans 
meanly laid hold of that opportunity to invade Africa. Conscious oi 
their utter inability to resist this formidable power, the Carthaginians 
offered every submission, and consented even to acknowledge them- 
selves the subjects of Rome. The Romans demanded 300 hostages, 
for the strict performance of every condition that should be enjoined 
by the senate. The hostages were given, and the condition requir- 
ed was, that Carthage itself should be razed to its foundation. Des- 

Sair gave courage to this miserable people, and they determined to 
ie in the defence of their native city. But the noble effort was in 
vain. Carthage was taken by storm, its inhabitants massacred, and 
the city burnt to the ground, A. U. C. 607, A. C. 146. 

9. The same year was signalized by the entire reduction of 
Greece under the dominion of the Romans. This was the aera of 
the dawn of luxury and taste at Rome, the natural fruit of foreign 
wealth, and an acquaintance with, foreign manners. In the unequal 
distribution of this imported wealth, the vices to which it gave rise, 
the corruption and venality of which it became the instrument, we 
gee the remoter causes of those fatal disorders to which the republic 
owed its dissolution. 



SECTION XXXIIL 

THE GRACCHI, AND THE CORRUPTION OF THE COMMON- 
WEALTH. 

1. At this period arose Tiberius and Caius Gracchus, two noble 
youths, whose zeal to reform the growing corruptions of the state, 
precipitated them at length into measures destructive of all govern- 
ment and social order. Tiberius, the elder of the brothers, urged 
the people to assert by force the revival of an ancient law, for limit- 
ing property in land, and thus abridging the overgrown estates of the 
patricians. A tumult was the consequence, in which Tiberius, with 
300 of his friends, were killed in the forum. This fatal example did 
not deter his brother, Caius Gracchus, from pursuing a similar career 
of zeal or of ambition. After some successful experiments of" his pow 
er, while in the office of tribune, he directed his scrutiny into the cor- 
ruptions of the senate, and prevailed in depriving that body of its con 
stitutional control over all the inferior magistrates of the state. Em- 



I 



loying, like his brother, the dangerous engine of tumultuary force, 
e fell a victim to it himself, with 3,000 of his partisans, who were 
slaughtered in the streets of Rome. The tumults attending the se- 
dition of the Gracchi were the prelude to those civil disorders which 
now followed in quick succession to the end of the commonwealth. 

2. The circumstances attending the war with Jugurtha gave deci- 
sive proof of the corruption of the Roman manners. Jugurtha, 
frandson of Masinissa, sought to usurp the crown of Numidia by 
estroying his cousins, Hiempsal and Adherbal, the sons of the last 
king. He murdered the elder ot the brothers; and the. younger 
applying for aid to Rome, Jugurtha bribed the senate, who declared 
him innocent of all culpable act or design, and decreed to him the 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 66 

sovereignty of half the kingdom. This operated only as an incentive 
to his criminal ambition. He declared open war against his cousin, 
besieged him in his capital of Cirta. and finally put him to death. 
To avert a threatened war Jugurtna went in person to Rome, 
pleaded his own cause in the senate, and once more by bribery 
secured his acquittal from all charge of criminality. A perseverance, 
however, in a similar train of conduct finally drew on him the ven- 
geance of the Romans ; and being betrayed into their hands by his 
own father-in-law, he was brought in chains to Rome, to grace the 
triumph of the consul Marius, confined to a dungeon, and starved to 
death, A. U C. 651, A. C. 103. 

3. The ambition of the allied states of Italy to attain the rights 
of citizenship produced the social war, which ended in a conces- 
sion of those rights to such of the confederates as should return 
peaceably to their allegiance. This war with the allies was a pre- 
lude to that which followed between Rome and her own citizens. 
Sylla and Marius, rivals, and thence enemies, were at this time the 
leaders of the republic. Sylla, commanding in a war against Mithri- 
dates, was superseded, and recalled from Asia. He refused to obey 
the mandate, and found his army well disposed to support him. 
" Let us march to Rome," said they, with cne voice ; " lead us on 
to avenge the cause of oppressed liberty." Sylla accordingly led 
them on, and they entered Rome sword in hand. Marius and his 
partizans fled with precipitation from the city, and Sylla ruled for a 
while triumphant. But the faction of his rival soon recovered 
strength. Marius returning to Italy, and joining his forces to those 
of Cinna, his zealous partizan, laid siege to Rome, and, while Sylla 
was engaged in the Mithridatic war, compelled the city to absolute 
submission. After a horrible massacre of all whom they esteemed 
their enemies, Marius and Cinna proclaimed themselves consuls, 
without the formality of an election ; but Marius died a few days 
after in a fit of debauch. 

4. After a victorious campaign in Asia, Sylla returned to Italy, 
and, joined by Cethegus, Verres, and the young Pompey, gave 
battle to the party of his enemies, and entirely defeated them. 
His entry into Rome was signalized by a dreadful massacre, and a 
proscription, which had for its object the extermination of every 
enemy whom he had in Italy. Elected dictator for an unlimited 
period, he was now without a rival in authority, and absolute master 
of the government, which, of course, was no longer a republic. 
In the exercise of his dominion he deserved more praise than in 
the means of acquiring it. He restored the senate to its judicial 
authority, regulated the election to all the important offices of 
state, and enacted many excellent laws against oppression and the 
abuse of power. Finally, he gave demonstration, if not of a pure 
conscience, at least of a magnanimous intrepidity of character, by 
voluntarily resigning all command, retiring to the condition of a 
private citizen, and offering publicly to give an account of his con- 
duct. He died within a short time after his resignation. He was 
certainly a man of great strength of mind, and had some of the qual- 
ities of a heroic character ; but he lived in evil times, when it was 
impossible at once to be great and to be virtuous. 

5. The death of Sylla renewed the civil war. Lepidus, a man of 
no abilities, aspired to succeed him in power ; and Pompey, with 
superior talents, cherished the same ambition. While the latter was 
employed in the reduction of the revolted provinces of Asia, the 

F2 9 



66 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

conspiracy of Catiline threatened the entire destruction of Rome. 
It was extinguished by the provident zeal and active patriotism 
of the consul Cicero. Catiline and his chief accomplices were 
attacked in the field, and defeated by Antonius. The traitor made 
a desperate defence, and died a better death than his crimes had 
merited. 

6. Julius Caesar now rose into public notice. Sylla dreaded hi' 
abilities and ambition, and had numbered him among the proscribed 
" There is many a Marius," said he, w in the person of that young 
man." He had learned prudence from the danger of his situation, 
and tacitly courted popularity, without that show of enterprise 
which gives alarm to a rival. While Pompey and Crassus contended 
for the command of the republic, Caesar, who knew that, by attach- 
ing himself to either rival, he infallibly made the other his enemy, 
showed the reach of his talents by "* reconciling them, and thus 
acquiring the friendship of both. From favour to their mutual friend 
they agreed to a partition of power ; and thus was formed the first 
triumvirate. Caesar was elected consul. He increased his popularity 
by a division of lands among the poorer citizens, and strengthened 
his interest with Pompey by giving him his daughter in marriage. 
He had the command of four legions, and the government of trans- 
alpine Gaul and Illyria. 

7. The military glory of the republic, and the reputation of 
Caesar, were nobly sustained in Gaul. In the first year of his govern- 
ment he subdued the Helvetii, who, leaving their own country, had 
attempted to settle themselves in the better regions of the Roman 
province. He totally defeated the Germans under Ariovistus, who 
nad attempted a similar invasion. The Belgae, the Nervii, the 
Celtic Gauls, the Suevi, Menapii, and other warlike nations, were 
all successively brought under subjection. In the fourth year of hi? 
government he transported his army into Britain. Landing at Deal, 
he was opposed by the natives with equal courage and military skill.' 
He gained, however, several advantages, and, binding the Britons to 
submission, withdrew into Gaul on the approach of winter. He 
returned in the following summer with a greater force, and, prose- 
cuting his victories, reduced a considerable portion of the island 
under the Roman dominion, A. C. 54. But the pressure of affairs 
in Italy suspended for a time the progress of the Roman arms in 
Britain. 

8. Caesar dreaded the abilities of Cicero, who had opposed him 
in his views of ambition. By the machinations of his partizans, 
while he was absent in Gaul, he procured the banishment of Cicero, 
and the confiscation of his estates, on the pretence of illegal meas- 
ures pursued in the suppression of the. conspiracy of Catiline. 
During an exile of sixteen months in Greece, Cicero gave way to a 
despondency of mind utterly unworthy of the philosopher. Pom- 
pey had abandoned him, and this ungrateful desertion bore most 
heavily upon his mind. In the wane of his reputation Pompey soon 
became desirous to prop his own sinking fortunes by the abilities of 
Cicero, and eagerly promoted his recal from exile. The death of 
Crassus, in an expedition against th« Parthians, now dissolved the 
triumvirate ; and Caesar and Pompey, wftige union had no other bond 
than interest, began each to conceive separately the view of undivid- 
ed dominion. 



ANCIENT HISTORY tf! 



SECTION XXXIV. 



PROGRESS OF THE CIVIL WARS. SECOND TRIUMVIRATE. 
FALL OF THE REPUBLIC. 

1. The ambition of Caesar and of Pompey had now evidently the 
same object ; and it seemed to be the only question, in those degen- 
erate times, to which of these aspiring leaders the republic should 
surrender its liberties. The term of Caesar's government was near 
expiring. To secure himself against a deprivation of power, he 
■ procured a proposal to be made in the senate by one of his partizans, 
which wore the appearance of great moderation, namely, that 
Caesar and Pompey should either both continue in their govern- 
ments, or both be deprived of them, as they were equally capable 
of endangering the public liberty by an abuse of power. The mo- 
tion passed, and Caesar immediately offered to resign, on condition 
that nis rival should do so ; but Pompey rejected the accommodation. 
The term of his government had yet several years' duration, and 
he suspected the proposal to be a snare laid for him by Caesar. He 
resolved to maintain nis right by force of arms, and a civil war was 
the necessary consequence. The consuls and a great part of the 
senate were the friends of Pompey. Caesar had on his side a victo- 
rious army, consisting of ten legions, and the body of the Roman cit- 
izens, whom he had won by his liberality. Mark Antony and Cas- 
sius, at that time tribunes of the people, left Rome, and repaired to 
Caesar's camp. 

2. The senate, apprehensive of his designs, pronounced a decree, 
branding with the crime of parricide any commander who should 
dare to pass the Rubicon (the boundary between Italy and the 
Gauls) with a single cohort, without their permission. Caesar 
infringed the prohibition, and marched straight to Rome. — Pompey, 
to whom the senate committed the defence of the state, had no 
army. He quitted Rome, followed by the consuls and a part of the 
senate, and endeavoured hastily to levy troops over all Italy and 
Greece; while Caesar triumphantly entered the city amidst the 
acclamations of the people, seized the public treasury, and possessed 
himself of the supreme authority without opposition. Having se- 
cured the capital of the empire, he set out to take the field against 
her enemies. The lieutenants of Pompey had possession of Spain. 
Caesar marched thither, and subdued the whole country in the 
space of forty days. He returned victorious to Rome, where, in his 
absence, he had been nominated dictator. In the succeeding elec- 
tion of magistrates he was chosen consul, and ivas thus invested, by 
a double title, with the right of acting in the name of the republic. 
Pompey had by this time raised a numerous army, and Caesar was 
anxious to bring him to a decisive engagement. The two armies 
met in Illyria, and the first conflict was of doubtful issue. Caesar 
led his army into Macedonia, where he found a large reinforcement 
He gave battle to Pompey in the field of Pharsalia, and entirely 
defeated him. Fifteen thousand of Pompey's army were slain, and 
24,000 surrendered themselves prisoners to the victor, A. U. C. 705, 
A. C. 49. 

3 The fate of Pompey was miserable in the extreme. With his 
wife Cornelia, the companion of his misfortunes, he fled to Egypt in 



68 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

a single ship, trusting to the protection of Ptolemy, whose father 
had owed to nim his settlement on the throne. But the ministers of 
this young prince, dreading the power ol' Caesar, basely courted his 
favour by the murder of his rival. Pompey was brought ashore in 
a small boat by the guards of the king ; and a Roman centurion, 
who had fought under his banners, stabbed him, even in the sight of 
Cornelia, and cutting off his head, threw the body naked on the 
sands. Caesar pursued Pompey to Alexandria, where the head cf 
that unhappy man, presented as a grateful offering, gave him the 
first intelligence of his fate. He wept, and turned with horror from 
the sight. He caused every honour to be paid to his memory, and 
from that time showed the utmost beneficence to the partizans of 
his unfortunate rival. 

4. The sovereignty of Egypt was in dispute between Ptolemy 
and his sister Cleopatra. The latter, though married to her brother, 
and joint heir by her father's will, was ambitious of undivided author- 
ity ; and Caesar, captivated by her charms, decided the contest in 
favour of the beauteous queen. A war ensued, in which Ptolemy 
was killed, and Egypt subdued by the Roman arms. In this war the 
famous library of Alexandria was burnt to ashes, A. C. 48. A revolt 
of the Asiatic provinces, under Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, 
was signally chastised ; and the report was conveyed by Caesar to 
the Roman senate in three words, Vcni, vidi, vici. The conqueror 
returned to Rome, which needed his presence ; for Italy was divid- 
ed, and the partizans of Pompey were yet extremely^ formidable. 
His two sons, with Cato and Scipio, were in arms in Africa. Caesar 
pursued them thither, and proceeding with caution till secure of his 
advantage, defeated them in a decisive engagement at Thapsus, 
Scipio perished in his passage to Spain. Cato, shutting himself up 
*n Utica, meditated a brave resistance ; but seeing no hope of suc- 
cess, he finally determined not to survive the liberties of his country, 
md fell deliberately by his own hand. Mauritania was now added 
to the number of the Roman provinces ; and Caesar returned to 
Rome, absolute master of the empire. 

5. From that moment his attention was directed solely to the 
prosperity and happiness of the Roman people. He remembered 
io longer that there had been opposite parties ; beneficent alike to 
the friends of Pompey as to his own. He laboured to reform every 
species of abuse or grievance. He introduced order into every de- 
partment of the state, defining the separate rights of all its magistrates, 
and extending his care to the regulation cf its most distant provinces. 
The reformation of the kalendar, the draining of the marshes of 
Ctaly, the navigation of the Tiber, the embellishment of Rome, the 
complete survey and delineation of the empire, alternately em- 
ployed his liberal and capacious mind. Returning from the final 
overthrow of Pompey's party in Spain, he was haiied the father of 
his country, was created consul for ten years, and perpetual dic- 
tator. His person was declared sacred, his title henceforth imperator 
A. U. C. 709, A. C. 15. 

6. The Roman republic had thus finally resigned its liberties, by 
its own acts. They were not extinguished, as Montesquieu has 
well remarked, by the ambition of a Pompey or of a Caesar. If the 
sentiments of Caesar and Pompey bad been the same with those of 
Cato, others would have had the same ambitious thoughts; and, 
since the commonwealth was fated to tall, there never would have 
H&n wanting a hand to drag it to destruction. Yet Caesar had by 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 69 

force subdued his country; and therefore was a usurper. If it had 
6een possible to restore the liberties of the republic, and with these 
its happiness, by the suppression of his usurpation, the attempt 
would hare merited the praise at least of good design. Perhaps so 
thought his murderers ; and thus, however weak their policy, how- 
ever base and treacherous their act, they will ever find apologists. 
They expected an impossible issue, as the event demonstrated. 

7. A conspiracy was formed by sixty of the senators, at the head 
of whom were Brutus and Cassius ; the former a man beloved of 
Caesar, who had saved his life, and heaped upon him numberless 
benefits. It was rumoured that the dictator wished to add to his 
numerous titles that of king, and that the ides of March was fixed 
on for investing him with the diadem. On that day, when taking 
his seat in the senate-house, he was suddenly assailed by the con- 
spirators. He defended himself for some time against their daggers, 
till, seeing Brutus among the number, he faintly exclaimed, " And 
you, too, my son !" and covering his face with his robe, resigned 
himself to his fate. He fell, pierced by twenty-three wounds, A. U. 
C. 711, and A. C. 43. 

8. The Roman people were struck with horror at the deed. 
They loved Caesar, master as he was of their lives and liberties. 
Mark Antony and Lepidus, ambitious of succeeding to the power ol 
the dictator, resolved to pave the way by avenging his death. 
Caesar, by his testament, had bequeathed a great part of his fortune 
to the people; and they were penetrated with gratitude to his 
memory. A public harangue by Antony over the bleeding body, ex- 
posed in the forum, inflamed them "with the utmost indignation 
against his murderers, who must have met with instant destruction 
if they had not escaped with precipitation from the city. Antony 
profited by these dispositions ; and the avenger of Caesar, of course 
the favourite of the people, was in the immediate prospect of attain- 
ing a similar height of dominion. In this, however, he found a for- 
midable competitor in Octavius, the grand-nephew and the adopted 
heir of Caesar, who, at this critical moment, arrived in Rome. 
Availing himself of these titles, Octavius gained the senate to his inter- 
est, and divided with Antony the favour of the people. The rivals 
soon perceived that it was their wisest plan to unite their interests ; 
and they admitted Lepidus into their association, whose power, as 
governor of Gaul, and immense riches, gave him a title to a share 
of authority. Thus was formed the second triumvirate, the effects 
of whose union were beyond measure dreadful to the republic. 
The triumviri divided among themselves the provinces, and cement- 
ed their union by a deliberate sacrifice made by each of his best 
friends to the vengeance of his associates. Antony consigned to 
death his uncle Lucius ; Lepidus his brother Paulus ; and Octavius 
his guardian Toranius and his friend Cicero. In this horrible pro* 
scription 300 senators and 3,000 knights were put to death. 

9. Octavius and Antony now marched against the conspirators, who 
had a formidable army in the field in Thrace, commanded by Brutus 
and Cassius. An engagement ensued at Philippi, which decided 
the fate of the empire. Antony obtained the victory, for Octavius 
had no military talents. He was destitute even of personal bravery, 
and his conduct after the victory was stained with that cruelty which 
is ever the attendant of cowardice. Brutus and Cassius escaped the 
vengeance of their enemies by a voluntary death. Antony now 
sought a recompense for his troops by the plunder of the east 



70 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

While in Cilicia, he summoned Cleopatra to answer for her conduct 
in dethroning an infant brother, and in openly favouring the party of 
Brutus and Cassius. The queen came to Tarsus, and made a com- 
plete conquest of the triumvir. Immersed in luxury, and intoxicated 
with love, he forgot glory, ambition, fame, and every thing, for 
Cleopatra. Octavius saw this phrensy with delight, as the prepara- 
tive of his rival's ruin. He had nothing to dread from Lepidus, 
whose insignificant character first drew on him the contempt of his 
partizans ; and whose folly, in attempting an invasion of the province 
of his colleague, was punished by his deposition and banishment. 

10. Antony had in his madness lavished the provinces of the em. 
pire in gifts to his paramour and her children, The Roman people 
were justly indignant at these enormities ; and the divorce of his 
wife Octavia, the sister of his colleague, was at length the signal of 
declared hostility between them. An immense armament, chiefly 
naval, came at length to a decisive conflict near Actium, on the 
coast of Epirus. Cleopatra, who attended her lover, deserted him 
with her galleys in the heat of the engagement ; and such was the 
infatuation of Antony, that he abandoned his fleet, and followed her. 
After a contest of some hours, they yielded to the squadron of Octavius, 
A. U. C. 723, A. C. 31. The victor pursued the fugitives to Egypt ; 
and the base Cleopatra proffered terms to Octavius, including the 
surrender of her kingdom, and the abandonment of Antony. After 
an unsuccessful attempt at resistance, Antony anticipated his fate 
by falling on his sword. Cleopatra soon after, either from remorse, 
or more probably from mortified ambition, as she found it was Octa- 
vius's design to lead her in chains to Rome to grace his triumph, had 
courage to follow the example of her lover, and put herself to death 
Dy the poison of an asp. Octavius returned to Rome sole master ot 
the Roman empire, A. U. C. 727, A. C. 27. 



SECTION XXXV. 

CONSIDERATIONS OF SUCH PARTICULARS AS MARK THE 
GENIUS AND NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE ROMANS. 

SYSTEM OF ROMAN EDUCATION. 

1. A virtuous but rigid severity of manners was the characteristic 
of the Romans under their kings, and in the first ages of the repub- 
lic. The private life of the citizens, frugal, temperate, and labori- 
ous, had its influence on their public character. The (patria potestas) 
paternal authority gave to every head of a family a sovereign author- 
ity over all the members that composed it- and this power, felt as a 
right of nature, was never roused. Plutarch has remarked, as a defect 
in the Roman laws, that they did not prescribe, as those of Lacedae- 
mon, a system and rules for the education of youth. But the truth 
is, the manners of the people supplied this want. The utmost at^ 
tention was bestowed in the early formation of the mind and charac* 
ter. The excellent author of the dialogue De Oratoribus (concerning 
orators) presents a valuable picture of the Roman education in the 
early ages of the commonwealth, contrasted with the less virtuous 
practice of the more refined ages. The Roman matrons did not 
aoandon their infants to mercenary nurses. They regarded the 
careful nurture of their offspring, the rudiments of theii education. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 71 

and the necessary occupations of iheir household, as the highest 
points of female merit. Next to the care bestowed in the instilment 
of virtuous morals, a remarkable degree of attention seems to have 
been given to the language of children, and to the attainment of 
a correctness and purity of expression. Cicero informs us that the 
Gracchi, the sons of Cornelia, were educated, non tarn in graemio 
quam in sermone matris, in the speech more than in the bosom of their 
mother, That urbanity which characterized the Roman citizens 
showed itself particularly in their speech and gesture. 

2. The attention to the language of the youth had another source- 
It was by eloquence, more than by any other talent, that the young 
Roman could rise to the highest offices and dignities of the state. 
The studia forensia {forensic studies) were, therefore, a principal ob- 
ject of the Roman education. Plutarch informs us, that among the 
sports of the children at Rome, one was pleading causes before a 
mock tribunal, and accusing and defending a criminal in the usual 
forms of judicial procedure. 

3. The exercises of the body were likewise particularly attended 
to ; whatever might harden the temperament, and confer strength 
and agility. These exercises were daily practised by the youth, 
under the eye of their elders, in the Campus Martius. 

4. At seventeen the youth assumed the manly robe. He was 
consigned to the care of a master of rhetoric, whom he attended 
constantly to the forum, or to the courts of justice ; for, to be an 
accomplished gentleman, it was necessary for a Roman to be an ac- 
complished orator. The pains bestowed on the attainment of this 
character, and the best instructions for its acquisition, we learn from 
the writings of Cicero, Quintilian, and the younger Pliny. 



SECTION XXXVI. 



OF THE PROGRESS OF LITERATURE AMONG THE ROMANS. 

1. Before the intercourse with Greece, which took place after 
the Punic wars, the Roman people was utterly rude and illiterate. 
As among all nations the first appearance of the literary spirit is 
shown in poetical composition, the Roman warrior had probably, 
like the Indian or the Celtic, his war songs, which celebrated his 
triumphs in battle. Religion likewise employs the earliest poetry 
of most nations; and if a people subsist by agriculture, a plentiful 
harvest is celebrated in the rustic song of the husbandman. The 
versus fescennini (fescennine verses), mentioned by Livy, were proba- 
bly of the nature of a poetical dialogue, or alternate verses sung by 
the labourers, in a strain of coarse merriment and raillery. This 
shows a dawning of the drama. 

2. About the 390th year of Rome, on occasion of a pestilence, 
ludiones ^drolls or stage dancers) were brought from Etruria, qui 
ad tibicinis modos saltantes, haud indecoros motus more Tusco dabant j 
who danced to the tunes of a musician, and. in tlie Tuscan fashion, exhi- 
bited motions that -were not ungraceful. Livy tells us that the Roman 
youth imitated these performances, and added to them rude and joc- 
ular verses, probably the fescennine dialogues. The regular drama 
was introduced at Rome from Greece by Livius Andronicus, A. U. C. 



-« ANCIENT HISTORY. 

514. The earliest Roman plays were therefore, we may presume, 
translations from the Greek. 

Et post punica bella quietus quaerere coepit, 

Quid Sophocles, et Thespis, et iEschylus utile ferrent. 

Hor. Epist. Lib. II, i. 

And being at peace after the Punic wars, the Romans began to inquire 
what advantages might be derived from the writings of Sophocles, Thespis, 
and JCschylus. 

3. Of the early Roman drama, Ennius was a great ornament, and 
from his time the art made rapid advancement. The comedies of 
Plautus, the contemporary of Ennius, with great strength and spirit 
of dialogue, display a considerable knowledge of human nature, 
and are read at this day with pleasure. 

4. Caecilius improved so much on the comedy of Plautus, that he 
is mentioned by Cicero as perhaps the best of the Roman comic 
writers. Of his compositions we have no remains. His patronage 
fostered the rising genius of Terence, whose first comedy, the Jin- 
dria, was performed A. U. C. 587. The merit of the comedies of 
Terence lies in that nature and simplicity which are observable in 
the structure of his fables, and in the delineation of his characters. 
They are deficient, however, in comic energy ; and are not calcu- 
lated to excite ludicrous emotions. They are chiefly borrowed from 
the Greek of Menander and Apollodorus. 

5. The Roman comedy was of four different species : the comeaut 
logata or prcetextata, the comedia tabernaria, the attellance, and the 
mimi. The first admitted serious scenes and personages, and was of 
the nature of the modern sentimental comedy. The second was a 
representation of ordinary life and manners. The attellance were 
pieces where the dialogue was not committed to writing, but the 
subject of the scene was prescribed, and the dialogue filled up by 
the talents of the actors. The mimi were pieces of comedy of the 
lowest species; farces, or entertainments of buffoonery; though 
sometimes admitting the serious, and even the pathetic. 

6. The Roman tragedy kept pace in its advancement with the 
comedy. The best of the Roman tragic poets were Actius and 
Pacuvius, of whom we have no remains. The tragedies published 
under the name, of Seneca are generally esteemed the work of dif- 
ferent hands, They are none of them of superlative merit. 

7. Velleius Paterculus remarks, that the sera of the perfection 
of Roman literature was the age of Cicero, comprehending all the 
literary men of the preceding times whom Cicero might have seen, 
and all those of the succeeding who might have seen him. Cicero, 
Q,uintilian, and Pliny celebrate, in high terms, the writing? of the 
alder Cato, whose principal works were historical^ and have entirely 
perished. We have his fragments, de Re Rmtica {on agriculture), in 
which he was imitated by Van o, one of the canlest of the good 
writers among the Romans, and a man of universal erudition. Of 
the variety of his talents we may judge, not oniy from the splendid 
eulogium of Cicero, but from the circumstance of Pliny having re- 
couirse to his authority in every book of his Natural History. 

8. Sallust, in order of time, comes next to Varro. This writer 
introd\iced an inportant improvement on history, as treated by the 
Greek historians, by applying (as Dionysius of Halicarnassus says) 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 73 

the science of philosophy to the study of facts. Sallust is therefore 
to be considered as the father of philosophic history ; a species of 
writing which has been so successfully cultivated in modern times. 
He is an admirable writer for the matter of his compositions, which 
evince great judgment and knowledge of human nature, but by no 
means commendable for his style and manner of writing. He affects 
singularity of expression, an antiquated phraseology, and a petulant 
brevity and sententiousness, which has nothing of the dignity of the 
historical style. 

9. Caesar has much more purity of style, and more correctness 
and simplicity of expression ; but his Commentaries, wanting that 
amplitude of diction and fulness of illustration which is essential to 
history, are rather of the nature of annals. 

10. In all the requisites of a historian, Livy stands unrivalled 
among the Romans ; possessing consummate judgment in the selec- 
tion of facts, perspicuity of arrangement, sagacious reflection, sound 
views of policy, with the most copious, pure, and eloquent expres- 
sion. It has been objected, that his speeches derogate from the 
truth of history : but this was a prevalent taste with the ancient 
writers ; and as those speeches are always known to be the compo- 
sition of the historian, the reader ls not misled. As to the style of 
Livy, though in general excellent we sometimes perceive in it, and 
most commonly in the speeches an affectation of the pointed sen- 
tences (the vibrantes sententiolai] and obscurity of the declaimers, 
which evinces the pernicious influence acquired by those teachers 
at Rome since the time of Cicero and Sallust. 

11. In the decline of Roman literature Tacitus is a historian of 
so common merit. He successfully cultivated the method pointed 
out by Sallust, of applying philosophy to history. In this he dis 
plays great knowledge of human nature, and penetrates, with sin- 
gular acuteness, into the secret springs of policy, and the motives 
of actions. But his fault is, that he is too much of a politician, 
dr&w hig his diameters after the model of his own mind ; ever as- 
signing actions and events to preconceived scheme and design, and 
allowing too little for the operation of accidental causes, which often 
have the greatest influence on human affairs. Tacitus, in his style, 
professedly imitated that of Sallust ; adopting all the ancient phra- 
seology, as well as the new idioms introduced into the Roman lan- 
guage by that writer. To his brevity and abruptness he added mos* 
of the faults of the declaiming school. His expression, therefore, 
though extremely forcible, is often enigmatically obscure; the 
worst property that style can possess. 

12. Among the eminent Roman poets (after the dramatic} Lucre- 
tius deserves first to be noticed. He has great inequality, oeing at 
some times verbose, rugged, and perplexed, and at others displaying 
all the elegance as well as the fire 01 poetry. This may be in great 
part attributed to his subject. Philosophical disquisition is unsuitable 
to poetry. It demands a dry precision of thought and expression, 
rejecting all excursive fancy and ornament of diction. That luxuri- 
ance of imagery, which is the soul of poetry, is raving and imper- 
tinence when applied to philosophy. 

13. Catullus, the contemporary of Lucretius, is the earliest of the 
Roman lyric poets. His Epigrams are pointed and satirical, but too 
licentious ; his Idylla tender, natural, and picturesque. He flourished 
in the age of Julius Caesar. 

14. In the succeeding age of Augustus, poetry attained to its high- 



74 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

est elevation among the Romans. Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Tibul- 
lus, were all contemporaries. Virgil is allowed the same rank among 
the Roman poets, as Homer among the Greek. If Homer excel 
Virgil in the sublime, the latter surpasses the former in the tender 
and elegant. The transcendent merits of Homer are sullied by oc- 
casional defects. Virgil is the model of a correct taste. The dif- 
ference of manner in the Bucolics, the Ge orgies, and the iEneid, 
shows that Virgil was capable of excelling in various departments of 
poetry ; and such is the opinion of Martial, who affirms that he 
could have surpassed Horace in lyric poetry, and Varius in tragedy. 

15. Horace excels as a lyric poet, a satirist, and a critic. In his 
odes there is more variety than in those of either Anacreon or 
Pindar. He can alternately display the sublimity of the latter, and 
the jocose vein of the former. His Satires have that characteristic 
slyness and obliquity of censure, associated with humour and pleas- 
antry, which strongly distinguish them from the stern and cutting 
sarcasm of Juvenal. As a critic, his rules are taken chiefly from 
Aristotle ; but they contain the elements of a just taste in poetical 
composition, and therefore do not admit of variation. The Satires 
of Juvenal, compared with those of Horace, are deficient in face- 
tiousness and urbanity ; but they are superior in acuteness of thought, 
and in manly vigor of sentiment. 

16. In variety of talent, without supreme excellence, and in ease 
and elegance of numbers, no Roman poet has exceeded Ovid. In 
his Metamorphoses, particularly, with great fancy, we have speci- 
mens of the pathetic, the descriptive, the eloquent, and even the 
sublime. His Elegies have more of nature and of real passion, 
man those of either Tibullus or Propertius. His amatory verses 
have much tenderness, but are too frequently loose, and even grossly 
licentious. 

17. There is nothing more elegant than the compositions of Ti- 
bullus, nothing more delicate than the turn of his expression ; but 
it is not the language of passion. The sentiments are tender, but 
their power of affecting the heart is weakened by the visible care 
and solicitude of the poet for refined phraseology and polished num- 
bers ; nor is there either much fancy or variety of thought. A sin* 
gle elegy exhibits the sentiments of the whole. 

18. Martial is the last of the Roman poets who can be mentioned 
with high approbation. His Epigrams, independent of their art and 
ingenuity, are valuable, as throwing light upon the Roman manners. 
He possesses, above every other poet, a naivete of expression, 
which is chiefly observable in his serious epigrams. He is well char- 
acterized by the younger Pliny. Ingeniosus, acer, et qui in scribendo et 
salts haberet etfellis, nee candoris minus. Epist. 3. 21. His writings are 
ingenious and acute ; they possess humour and satire, and no less candour, 

19. Luxuriance of ornament, and the fondness for points, and bril 
liancy of thought and expression, are certain indications of the de- 
cline of good taste. These characters strongly mark the Latin 
poets of the succeeding ages. Lucan has some scattered examples 
of genuine poetic imagery, and Persius some happy strokes of ani- 
mated satire ; but they scarcely compensate the affected obscurity 
of one, and the bombast of the other. The succeeding poets, Statius, 
Silius Italicus, and Valerius Flaccus, in their attempts at the most 
difficult of all species of poetry the epic, have only more signally 
displayed the inferiority of their genius, and the manifest decay of 
the art 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 7ft 

SECTION XXXVII. 
STATE OF PHILOSOPHY AMONG THE ROMANS. 

1. The Romans, in the earlier periods of the republic, had little 
leisure to bestow on the cultivation of the sciences, and had no idea 
of philosophical speculation. It was not till the end of the sixth 
century from the buildiag of the city, and in the interval between 
the war with Perseus and the third Punic war, that philosophy made 
its first appearance at Rome. A few learned Acnaeans, banished 
from their country, had settled in various parts of Italy, and apply- 
ing themselves to the cultivation of literature and the education 
of youth, diffused a taste for those studies hitherto unknown to the 
Romans. The elder citizens regarded those pursuits with an unfa- 
vourable eye. Jealous of the introduction of foreign manners with 
foreign studies, the senate banished the Greek philosophers from 
Rome. But an Athenian embassy, arriving soon after, brought 
thither Carneades and Critolaus, who revived the taste for the Greek 
philosophy, and left behind them many able disciples, who publicly 
taught their doctrines. 

2. It was natural that those systems should be most generally 
adopted which were most suitable to the national character. While 
the manners of the Romans had a tincture of ancient severity, the 
stoical system prevailed. Scipio, Laelius, and the younger Cato rank 
among its chiet partisans. 

3. The philosophy of Aristotle was little known in Rome till the 
age of Cicero. At that time Cratippus and Tyrannion taught his 
system with great reputation. Yet Cicero complains that the peri- 
patetic philosophy was little understood at Rome ; and therefore, he 
sent his son to study its doctrines in the schools of Athens. 

4. Lucullus, whose stay in Greece gave him an opportunity ot 
being acquainted with all the different sects, disseminated, on his 
return to Rome, a very general taste for philosophy. His patronage 
of learned men, and his liberality in allowing his library to be open 
for the public use, contributed greatly to the promotion of litera- 
ture. 

5. The Old and New Academy had each its partisans. Of the 
former, which may be termed the Stoico-Platonic, the most illus- 
trious disciples were Marcus Brutus and Terentius Varro. To the 
philosophical talents of Brutus, and the universal erudition of Varro, 
the writings of Cicero bear ample testimony. Cicero himself must 
be deemed the most eminent of all the Roman philosophers. He is 
classed among the principal supporters of the New Academy; 
though it seems to have been his purpose to elucidate the Greek 
philosophy in general, rather than to rank himself among the disci- 
ples of any particular sect. 

6. The cultivation of physics, or natural philosophy, seems te 
have been little attended to either by the Greeks or Romans. Un- 
less agriculture should be classed under this description, we know 
of no Roman authors, except Varro and the elder rliny, who seem 
to have bestowed much attention on the operations of nature. The 
works of Varro have perished, except a few fragments. The Nat- 
ural History of Pliny is a most valuable store-house of the knowl- 
edge of the ancients in physics, economics, and the arts and sciences. 



76 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

It is to be regretted that the style is unsuitable to the matter, being 
too frequently florid, declamatory, and obscure. 

7. The philosophy of Epicurus was unknown in the early ages 
of the Roman commonwealth. It was introduced with luxury, and 
kept pace in its advancement with the corruption of manners. Cin- 
neas having discoursed on the tenets of Epicurus at the table of 
Pyrrhus, Fabricius exclaimed, "May the enemies of Rome ever 
entertain such principles!" Yet these principles were, in a short 
time from that period, too current among the citizens of Rome. 



SECTION XXXVIII. 

OF THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MANNERS OF THE ROMANS. 

1. The manners of the Romans in the early ages of the republic 
were so different from those of the latter times, that one should be 
led to suppose some very extraordinary causes to have co-operated 
to produce so remarkable a change ; yet the transition is easy to be 
accounted for. A spirit of temperance, of frugality, and probity, is 
the characteristic of every infant establishment. A virtuous simpli- 
city of manners, and a rigour of military discipline, paved the way 
for the extension of the Roman arms, and for their prodigious con- 
quests. These conquest introduced wealth, luxury, and corruption. 

2. In the early times of the republic the patricians, when in the 
country, forgot the distinction of ranks, and laboured in the cultiva- 
tion of their fields, like the meanest plebeians. We have the exam- 

51es of Cincinnatus, Curius, the elder Cato, and Scipio Africanus. 
?he town was visited only every ninth day, which was the market 
day. In those times of virtuous simplicity, says Sallust, Domi mili- 
tixeque boni mores colebantur. Duabus artibus, audacia in bello, ubi pax 
evenerat, cequitate, seque remque publicam curabant. Good manners were 
cultivated both in peace and war. By two means, valour in war, and 
equity in peace, they supported themselves and the commonwealth. But 
when the Romans had extended their dominion, in consequence of this 
very discipline and these manners, they imported with the wealth of 
the conquered nations their tastes, their manners, and their vices. 

3. The Romans had no natural taste in the line arts. On the con- 
quest of Greece an immense field opened at once to their eyes, and 
the master-pieces of art poured in upon them in abundance. But 
they could not appreciate their excellences. The Roman luxury, as 
far as the arts were concerned, was in general displayed in an 
awkward, heavy, and tasteless magnificence. 

4. The public and private life of the Romans will be best eluci- 
dated by a short account of the manner in which the day was pass- 
ed at Rome ? both, by the higher and lower ranks of the people. 
By a part of the citizens the morning hours were spent in visiting 
the temples, by others in attending the levees of the great. The 
dientes (clients) waited on their patroni (patrons); the patricians 
visited one another, or paid their compliments to tne leaders of the 
republic. Popularity was always the first object of ambition at 
Rome, as paving the way to all advancement. From the levee they 
proceeded to the forum, either to assist in the public business, or for 
amusement. There the time was spent till noon, which was the 
hour of dinner among the Romans. This was chiefly a very light 
repast, of which it wvs not customary to invite any guests to partake. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 77 

After dinner the youth repaired to the Campus Martius, where they 
occupied themselves in atnletic exercises and sports till sunset. The 
elder class retired for an hour to repose, and then passed the after- 
noon in their porticoes, galleries or libraries, where they enjoyed the 
conversation of their friends, or heard recitations of literary works ; 
others repaired to the theatres, or to the shows of the circus and 
amphitheatre. 

5. Combats of gladiators were introduced for the first time about 
the 400th year of the city. These and combats with wild beasts soon 
became a favourite amusement among the Romans. The spirit of 
luxury, which in general is not unfavourable to humanity, showed its 
progress among the Romans by an increasing ferocity and inhumanity 
of the public spectacles. Theatrical entertainments were in high 
request. (Sect. XXXVI, § 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.) The taste for pantomime 
came to such a height, that the art was taught in public schools, and 
the nobility and people were divided into parties in favour of the 
rival performers ; an abuse which called at length for the interposi- 
tion of the laws. 

6. From the porticoes, or from the theatre and amphitheatre, it waa 
customary to go to the baths, of which there were many for the use 
of the public. The rich had baths in their own houses, vying with 
each other in this as in every other article of luxury or magnificence. 
From the bath they went immediately to supper, generally about the 
ninth or tenth hour, counting from sunrise. At table they reclined 
on couches. The luxury of the Roman suppers far exceeded every 
thing known among the moderns. An anteccenium of pickles and 
spices was presented to prepare and sharpen the appetite. Cook- 
ery became a science. The number and costliness of the dishes 
were incredible. The entertainment was heightened by every thing 
gratifying to the senses; by male and female dancers, musicians, 
pantomimes, and even shows of gladiators. 

7. In the end of the republic pleasure and amusement were the 
darling object of all ranks of the citizens: they sought no more than 
panem et circenses {bread and games in the circus). 



SECTION XXXIX. 

OF THE ART OF WAR AMONG THE ROMANS. 

1 . From the prodigious success which attended the arms of tne 
Romans, and the dominion which they acquired over the greater 
part of the known world, it seems a natural inference that they must 
have excelled all the contemporary nations in the military art. Vege- 
tius expressly assigns their extensive conquests to that cause alone. 
It is the discipline of an army that makes a multitude act as one man. 
It likewise increases the courage of troops ; for each individual con- 
fides in the steady co-operation of his fellows. 

2. From the constant practice of athletic exercises, the Romans 
were inured from infancy to hardiness and fatigue, and bred to that 
species of life, which a soldier leads in the most active campaign in 
the field. 

3. The levies were made annually, by the tribes called out, and 
divided into their respective number of centuries; each century pre- 
senting by rotation, as many soldiers as there were legions intended 
to be raised; and the tribunes of the several legions taking their turn 



78 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

by rotation in the selection of the men presented by the centuries 
(Sect. XXIV, § 16.) The number of soldiers in the legion was vari- 
ous at different periods, from 3,000 to 10,000 and 11,000. 

4. Among the ancient nations there were usually two different 
arrangements of the troops in order of battle. One the phalanx, 
or close arrangement in a rectangular form, intersected only by 
great divisions ; a disposition commonly used by the Greeks, and 
by most of the barbarous nations. The other the quincunx or 
chequer, consisting of small companies or platoons, disposed in three 
straight lines, with alternate spaces between the companies equal 
to the space occupied by each company. In the first line were the 
hastati, in the second the principes, and in the third the triarii. On 
the flanks of the first line were the cavalry, in detached companies; 
and in front of the line were the velites, or light-armed troops, who 
usually began with a skirmishing attack, and then were withdrawn, to 
make way for the main body to come into action. The advantages 
of this arrangement we-re, that the line of battle could be three 
times formed with fresh troops, and that it was more adapted than 
any other for rapid changes of movement. In the Roman legion, 
the arms of the hastati and ptincipes were the pilum or heavy jave- 
lin, and the sword and buckler ; and of the triarii, the long spear, 
with the sword and buckler. 

5. Notwithstanding these advantages the quincunx went into disuse 
toward the end of the republic, and from that time various arrange- 
ments of the legion were used according to circumstances. The 
Roman tactics are supposed to have been at their greatest pitch of 
excellence during the Punic wars. Hannibal was a great master of 
the science of tactics ; and the Romans profited by the experience 
of his ability. The battle of Cannse, as described by Polybius, 
affords signal evidence of the great talents of the Carthaginian gen- 
eral. The description of that battle has been misrepresented by 
Folard ; but it is accurately explained in the Memoires Militaires of 
M. Guischardt. If the quincunx disposition had been kept by the 
Roman army in that engagement, the event might have been very 
different ; for it would have disappointed the effect of an artful 
manoeuvre planned by Hannibal, on observing his enemy's army 
arranged in the unusual order of the phalanx. 

6. The art of intrenchment was carried to perfection by the Ro- 
mans, particularly by Julius Caesar. With 60,000 men he defended 
himself in his intrenchments before Alexia, while the lines of cir 
cumvallation were attacked by 240,000 Gauls, and the lines of counter 
valiation by 80,000, without effect. These intrenchments consisted 
of a ditch from nine to fifteen feet in depth and width, fenced on the 
inside by the mound of excavated earth, and on the outside by strong 
stakes with pointed branches. 

7. In besieging a town several camps were formed round the 
place, joined to one another by lines of circumvallation and coun- 
tervallation. A mound of earth {agger) was raised, beginning by a 
gentle slope from one of the camps, and gradually rising in elevation 
as it approached the city. The front, where the workmen were 
employed, was defended by a curtain of hides fixed on strong posts. 
On this mound the engines of attack, catapultas and balisfce, were 
advanced, till they played on the very spot which the besiegers wish- 
ed to assail. The catapultm discharged heavy stones, the balistat 
arrows. The same machines were used by the besieged for annoy 
in^ the enemy. When the engines on the terrace had driven the 



AJSCIENT HISTORY. 79 

besieged from the walls, the battering-ram (aries) was then brought 
up under a pent-house Uestudo) ; and, if it once reached the wall, was 
generally decisive of the fate of the town. The main object of the 
besieged was therefore to prevent its approach by every power of 
annoyance. Stones, darts, and combustible matters were continually 
launched upon the assailants ; and sometimes a mine was dug from 
the city to scoop away the terrace and all its engines. These arts 
of attack and defence of fortified places were in general use among 
the nations of antiquity, and continued down to modern times, till the 
invention of gunpowder. 

8. The naval military art was utterly unknown among the Ro- 
mans till the first Punic war. A Carthaginian galley was the first 
model of a vessel of war. In the space of two months they equipped 
a fleet of 100 gallies of five banks of oars, and 20 of three banks. 
The structure of those gallies, and the mode of arranging the row- 
ers, may be learned from the ancient sculptures and medals. The 
combatants at sea assailed at a distance with javelins, missile com- 
bustibles, and sometimes with catapultce and balistce; but the serious 
attack was made in boarding, when the vessels were grappled by 
means of a crane let down from the prow. 

9. In the times of the empire, the Romans maintained their distant 
conquests, not only by their armies, but by their fleets. The ships 
were moored in the large rivers and bays ; and both the legions and 
the fleets generally preserved a fixed station. 



SECTION XL. 

REFLECTIONS ARISING FROM A VIEW OF THE ROMAN HIS 
TORY DURING THE COMMONWEALTH. 

1. The history of all nations evinces, that there is an inseparable 
connexion between the morals of a people and their political pros- 
perity. But we have no stronger demonstration of this truth than 
the annals of the Roman commonwealth. To limit to republics alone 
the necessity of virtue as a principle, is a chimerical notion, fraught 
with dangerous consequences. Quid leges sine moribus nance, prqfici- 
unt ? {laws without morals avail notfiing) is a sentiment equally appli- 
cable to all governments ; and no political system, however excellent 
its fabric, can possess any measure of duration, without that power- 
ful cement, virtue, in the principles and manners of the people. (Sect. 
XIX, §4.) 

2. The love of our country, and the desire for its rational liberty, 
are noble and virtuous feelings ; and their prevalence is ever a test 
of the integrity of the national morals. But no term has been more 

{>rostituted than the word liberty. In a corrupted people the cry for 
iberty is heard the loudest among the most profligate of the commu- 
nity. With these its meaning has no relation to patriotism ; it im- 
ports no more than the aversion to restraint ; and the personal char- 
acter of the demagogue, and the private morals of his disciples, are 
always sufficient to unmask the counterfeit. The spirit of patriot- 
ism and a general corruption of manners cannot possibly be coexis- 
tent in the same age and nation. 

3. On the other hand, while the morals of a people are pure, no 
public misfortune is irretrievable, nor any political situation so des- 
perate, that hope may not remain of a favourable change. In such 
situations the spirit of patriotism pervading all ranks of the state will 



80 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

soon recover the national prosperity. The history of the Roman peo 
pie, and that of the Grecian states, in various crises, both of honoui 
and of disgrace, affords proofs alike of this position and of its converse. 

4. The national character of the Romans seems to have under 
gone its most remarkable change for the worse from the time of th« 
destruction of their rival, Carthage. Sallust assigns the cause Ante 

Carthaginem deletam, metus hostilis in bonis artibus civitatem retinebat. 

Sed ubi illaformido mentibus decessit, scilicet ea quoe secundce res amant, 

lascivia atque superbia invasere. Before the destruction of Carthage, 

the fear of their enemy kept the people in the practice of virtue ; but when 
the restraint of fear ceased to influence their conduct, they abandoned therrtr 
selves to profligacy and arrogance, the usual concomitants of prosperity. 

5. In the last ages of the commonwealth, avarice and ambition, 
unrestrained by moral principle, were the chief motives of the Ro- 
man conquests. It was sufficient reason for going to war, that a 
country offered a tempting object to the rapacity and ambition of 
the military leaders. The conquest of Italy paved the way for the 
reduction of foreign nations. Hence the Romans imported, with their 
wealth, the manners, the luxuries, and the vices of the nations which 
they subdued. The generals returned not as formerly, after a suc- 
cessful war, to the labours of the field, and to a life of temperance 
and industry. They were now the governors of kingdoms and prov- 
inces ; and at the period of their command abroad, disdaining the 
restraints of a subject, they could be satisfied with nothing less than 
sovereignty at home. The armies, debauched by the plunder of 
kingdoms, were completely disposed to support them in all their 
schemes of ambition ; and Uie populace, won by corruption, alwayi 
took part with the chief who best could pay for their favour and 
support. Force or bribery overruled every election ; and the in- 
habitants of distant states, now holding the right of citizens, were 
brought to Rome, at the command of the demagogue, to influence 
any popular contest, and turn the scale in his favour. In a govern- 
ment thus irretrievably destroyed by the decay of those springs 
which supported it, it was of little consequence by what particular 
tyrant, usurper, or demagogue, its ruin was finally accomplished. 

6. From a consideration of the rise and fall of the principal states 
of antiquity, it has been a commonly received opinion, that the con- 
stitution of empires has, like the human body, a period of growth, 
maturity, decline, and extinction. But arguments from analogy are 
extremely deceitful, and particularly so when the analogy is from 
physical to moral truths. The human body is, from its fabric, natu- 
rally subject to decay, and is perpetually undergoing a change from 
time. Its organs, at first weak, attain gradually their perfect 
strength, and thence, by a similar gradation, proceed to decay and 
dissolution. This is an immutable law of its nature. But the springs 
of the body politic do not necessarily undergo a perpetual change 
from time, it is not regularly progressive from weakness to strength, 
and thence to decay and dissolution ; nor is it under the influence 
of any principle of corruption which may not be checked, and even 
eradicated, by wholesome laws. Thus the beginning of the cor- 
ruption of Sparta is attributed to Lysander's breach of the institu- 
tions ol Lycurgus, in introducing gold into the treasury of the state 
instead of its iron money. But was this a necessary, or an unavoid 
able measure ? Perhaps a single vote in the senate decreed its adop- 
tion, and therefore another suffrage might have prevented, or long 
postponed, the downfal of the commonwealth. The Roman repub- 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 8! 

lie owed its dissolution to the extension of its dominions. If it had 
been a capital crime for any Roman citizen to have proposed to 
carry the arms of the republic beyond the limits of Italy, its consti- 
tution might have been preserved for many ages beyond the period 
of its actual duration. "Accustom your mind," said Phocion to 
Aristias, " to discern, in the fate of nations, that recompense which 
the great Author of nature has annexed to the practice of virtue. 
No state ever ceased to be prosperous, but in consequence of having 
departed from those institutions to which she owed her prosperity." 
History indeed has shown that all states and empires have had their 

Eeriod of duration ; but history, instructing us in the causes which 
ave produced their decline and fall, inculcates also this salutary 
lesson, that nations are in general the masters of their own destiny, 
and that they may, and most certainly ought to, aspire at immortality. 
7. It was a great desideratum in ancient politics, that a government 
should possess within itself the power of periodical reformation ; a 
capacity of checking any overgrowth of authority in any of its 
branches, and of winding up the machine, or bringing back the con- 
stitution to its first principles. To the want of such a power in the 
states of antiquity (which they ineffectually endeavoured to supply 
by such partial contrivances as the ostracism and petalism) we may 
certainly ascribe, in no small degree, the decay of those states ; for 
in their governments, when the balance was once destroyed, the 
evil grew worse from day to day, and admitted no remedy but a 
revolution, or entire change of the system. The British constitu- 
tion possesses this inestimable advantage over all the governments 
both of ancient and modern times, with the single exception of the 
government of the United States of America. Besides the perpetua* 

Eower of reform vested in parliament, the constitution may be puri- 
ed of every abuse, and brought back to its first principles, at the 
commencement of every reign. But of this we shall afterwards 
treat in its proper place. 



SECTION XLI. 
ROME UNDER THE EMPERORS. 

t. The battle of Actium decided the fate of the commonwealtn, 
and Octavius, now named Augustus, was master of the Roman 
empire. He possessed completely the sagacity of discerning what 
character was best fitted for gaining the affections of the people 
whom he governed, and the versatility of temper and genius to as- 
sume it. His virtues, though the result of policy, not of nature, were 
certainly favourable to the happiness, and even to the liberties of 
his subjects. The fate of Caesar warned him of the insecurity of a 
usurped dominion ; and therefore, while he studiously imitated the 
engaging manners and clemency of his great predecessor, he affect- 
ed a much higher degree of moderation, and respect for the rights of 
the people. 

2. The temple of Janus was shut, which nad been open for 188 
years, since the beginning of the second Punic war ; an event pro- 
ductive of universal joy. "The Romans (says Condillac) now be- 
lieved themselves a free people, since they nad no longer to fight for 
their liberty." The sovereign kept up this delusion, by maintaining 
the ancient forms of the republican constitution, in the election of 

U 



82 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

magistrates, &c, though they were nothing more than forms. He 
even pretended to consider his own function as merely a temporary 
administration for the public benefit. Invested with the consulate 
and censorship, he went through the regular forms of periodical 
election to those offices, and at the end ol the seventh year of his 
government actually announced to the senate his resignation of all 
authority. The consequence was a general supplication of the sen- 
ate and people, that he would not abandon the republic, which he 
had saved from destruction. " Since it must be so," said he, " I accept 
the empire for ten years, unless the public tranquillity shall, before 
the expiration of that time, permit me to enjoy retirement, which 
I passionately long for." He repeated the same mockery five times 
in the course of his government, accepting the administration some- 
times for ten, and sometimes only for five years. 

3. It was much to the credit of Augustus, that in the government 
of the empire he reposed unlimited confidence in Mecaenas, a most 
able minister, who had sincerely at heart the interest and happiness 
of the people. By his excellent counsels all public affairs were con- 
ducted, and the most salutary laws enacted for the remedy of public 
grievances, and even the correction of the morals of the people, 
To his patronage literature and the arts owed their encouragement 
and advancement. By his influence and wise instructions Augustus 
assumed those virtues to which his heart was a stranger, and 
which, in their tendency to the happiness of his subjects were 
equally effectual as if they had been the genuine fruits of his nature. 

4. On the death of Marcellus, the nephew and son-in-law of Au- 
gustus, and a prince of great hopes, 23 A. C, the emperor bestowed 
his chief favour on Marcus Agrippa, giving him his daughter Julia, 
the widow of Marcellus, in marriage. Agrippa had considerable 
military talents, and was successful in accomplishing the reduction of 
Spain, and subduing the revolted provinces of Asia. Augustus as- 
sociated Agrippa with himself in the office of censor, and would prob- 
ably have given him a share of the empire, if his death had not 
occasioned a new arrangement. Julia now took for her third husband 
Tiberius, who became the son-in-law of the emperor by a double 
tie, for Augustus had previously married his mother Li via. This 
artful woman, removing all of the imperial family who stood betwixt 
her and the object of her ambition, thus made room for the succes- 
sion of her son Tiberius, who, on his part, bent all his attention to gain 
the favour and confidence ot Augustus. On the return of Tiberius 
from a successful campaign against the Germans, the people were 
made to solicit the emperor to confer on him the government of the 
provinces and the command of the armies. Augustus now gradually 
withdrew himself from the cares of empire. He died soon after at 
Nola, in Campania, in the 76th year of his age, and the 44th of his 
imperial reign, A. U. C. 767, and A. D. 14. 

5. A considerable part of the lustre thrown on the reign of Augus- 
tus is owing to the splendid colouring bestowed on his character by 
the poets and other authors who adorned his court, and repaid his 
favours by their adulation. Other sovereigns of much higher merits 
have been less fortunate in obtaining the applause of posterity. 

Illacrymabilea 

Urguentur, ignotique, longa 

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. Hor. Car. Lib. IV, 9. 
Unlamented and unknown they sink into oblivion, because they have no 
inspired bard to celebrate their praise. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 83 

One great event distinguished the reign of Augustus, the birth of 
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which, according to the best 
authorities, happened A. U. C. 754, and four years before the vulgai 
date of the christian aera.* 

5. Augustus had named Tiberius his heir, together with his moth- 
er Livia ; and had substituted to them Drusus, the son of Tiberius, 
and Germanicus. Tiberius was vicious, debauched, and cruel ; yel 
the very dread of his character operated in securing an easy suc- 
cession to the empire. An embassy from the senate entreated him 
to accept the government, which he modestly affected to decline, 
but suffered himself to be won by their supplications. Notwithstand- 
ing these symptoms of moderation, it soon appeared that the power 
enjoyed by his predecessor was too limited for the ambition of Ti- 
berius. It was not enough that the substance of the republic was 
gone ; the very appearance of it was now to be demolished. The 
people were no longer assembled, and the magistrates of the state 
were supplied by the imperial will. 

6. Germanicus, the nephew of Tiberius, became the object of his 
jealousy, from the glory which he had acquired by his military ex- 
ploits in Germany, and the high favour in which he stood with the 
Roman people. He was recalled in the midst of his successes, and 
despatched to the oriental provinces, where he soon after died; and it 
was generally believed that he was poisoned by the emperor's com- 
mand. 

7. jElius Sejanus, praefect of the praetorian guards, the favourite 
counsellor of Tiberius, and the obsequious minister of his tyranny 
and crimes, conceived the daring project of a revolution, whicn 
•hould place himself on the throne, by the extermination of the whole 
imperial family. Drusus, the son of the emperor, was destroyed by 
poison. Agrippina, the widow of Germanicus, with her elder son, 
was banished ; and the younger son was confined in prison. Tibe- 
rius was persuaded by Sejanus, under the pretence of the discovery 
of plots for his assassination, to retire from Rome to the Isle of 
Capreae, and devolve the government upon his faithful minister. 
But while Sejanus, thus far successful, meditated the last step to the 
accomplishment of his wishes, by the murder of his sovereign, his 
treason was detected ; and the emperor despatched his mandate to the 
senate, which was followed by his immediate sentence and execution. 
The public indignation was not satisfied with his death . the populace 
tore Bis body to pieces, and flung it into the Tiber. 

8. Tiberius now became utterly negligent of the cares of govern- 
ment, and the imperial power was displayed only in public execu- 
tions, confiscations, and scenes of cruelty and rapine. At length the 
tyrant falling sick was strangled in his Bed by Macro, the praefect of 
the praetorian guards, in the 78th year of his age, and the 23d of his 
reign. 

9. In the 18th year of Tiberius, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
the divine author of our religion, suffered death upon the cross, a 
sacrifice and propitiation for the sins of mankind, A. D. 33. 

10. Tiberius had nominated for his heir, Caligula the son of Ger- 
manicus, his grandson by adoption ; and had joined with him Tibe- 
rius the son of Drusus, his grandson by blood. The former enjoyed, 
on his father's account, the favour of the people ; and the senate, to 

* See Dr. Playfair's System of Chronology, p. 49, 50, a work of great 
esearch and accuracy, and by far the best on that subject. 



84 AJNC1EJST HISTOKY. 

gratify them, set aside the right of his colleague, and conferred on 
Eim the empire undivided. The commencement of his reign was 
signalized by a few acts of clemency, and even good policy. He 
restored the privileges of the comitia, and abolished arbitrary prose- 
cutions for crimes of state. But, tyrannical and cruel by nature, he 
substituted military execution for legal punishment. The provinces 
were loaded with the most oppressive taxes, and daily confiscations 
filled the imperial coffers. The follies and absurdities of Caligula 
were equal to his vices, and it is hard to say whether he was most the 
object of hatred or of contempt to his subjects. He perished by 
assassination in the fourth year of his reign, the twenty-ninth of his 
age, A. U. C. 794, A. D. 42. 

11. Claudius, the uncle of Caligula, was saluted emperor by the 
praetorian guards, who had been the murderers of his nephew. He 
was the son of Octavia, the sister of Augustus ; a man of weak in- 
tellects, and of no education. His short reign was marked by an 
enterprise of importance. He undertook the reduction of Britain, 
and after visiting the island in person, left his generals, Plautius and 
Vespasian, to prosecute a war which was carried on for several years 
with various success. The Silures or inhabitants of South Wales, 
under their king Caractacus (Caradoc), made a brave resistance, but 
were finally defeated; and Caractacus was led captive to Rome, 
where the magnanimity of his demeanour procured him respect and 
admiration. 

12. The civil administration of Claudius was weak and contempt- 
ible. He was the slave even of his domestics, and the dupe of his in- 
famous wives Messalina and Agrippina. The former, abandoned to 
the most shameful profligacy, was at length but to death on suspi- 
cion of treasonable designs. The latter, who was the daughter oi 
Germanicus, bent her utmost endeavours to secure the succession to 
the empire to her son Domitius Oenobardus, and employed every 
engine of vice and inhumanity to remove the obstacles to the accom- 
plishment of her wishes. Having at length prevailed on Claudius to 
adopt her son, and confer on him the title of Caesar, to the exclusion 
of his own son Britannicus, she now made room for the immediate 
elevation of Domitius, by poisoning her husband. Claudius waf 
put to death in the 15th year of his reign, and the 63d c£ his age. 



SECTION XLI1. 

1. The son of Agrippina assumed the title of Nero Claudius. He 
had enjoyed the beneht of a good education under the philosopher 
Seneca, but reaped from his instructions no other fruit than a pedan- 
tic affectation of taste and learning, with no real pretension to either. 
While controledby his tutor Seneca, and by Burrhus, captain of 
the praetorian guards, a man of worth and ability, Nero maintained 
for a short time a decency of public conduct ; but the restraint was 
intolerable, and nature soon broke out. His real character was a 
compound of every thing that is base and inhuman. In the murder 
of his mother Agrippina he revenged the crime which she had 
committed in raising him to the throne ; he rewarded the fidelity 
of Burrhus, by poisoning him ; and as a last kindness to his tutor 
Seneca he allowed him to choose the mode of his death. It was his 
darling' amusement to exhibit on the stage and amphitheatre as an 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 85 

actor, musician, or gladiatoi. At length, become the object of 
universal hatred and contempt, a rebellion of his subjects, headed by 
Vindex, an illustrious Gaul, hurled this monster from the throne. 
He had not courage to attempt resistance ; and a slave, at his own 
request, despatched him with a dagger. Nero perished in the 30th 
year of his age, after a reign of fourteen years, A. D, 69. 

2. Galba, the successor of Nero, was ot an ancient and illustrious 
family. He was in the 73d year of his age when the senate, ratify- 
ing the choice of the praetorian bands, proclaimed him emperoi 
But an impolitic rigour of discipline soon disgusted the army ; the 
avarice of his disposition, grudging the populace their favourite 
games and spectacles, deprived^ him of their affections; and some 
iniquitous prosecutions and confiscations excited general discontent 
and mutiny. Galba, adopted and designed for his successor the able 
and virtuous Piso ; a measure which excited the jealousy of Otho, 
his former favourite, and led him to form the daring plan of raising 
himself to the throne by the destruction of both. He found the 
praetorians apt to his purpose. They proclaimed him emperor, and 
presented him, as a grateful offering, the heads of Galba and Piso ? 
who were slain in quelling the insurrection. Galba had reigne* 
seven months. Major privato visus, dum pnvatus fuit, et omnium con* 
sensu capax imperii, nisi imperasset. Tacitus. He appeared to be greater 
than a private man. while he was in a private station ; and by the consent 
of all was capable of governing, if he liad not governed. 

3. Otho had a formidable rival in Vitellius, who ha.l been pro- 
claimed emperor by his army in Germany. It is hard to say which 
of the competitors was, in point of abilities, the more despicable, or 
in character the more infamous. A decisive battle was fought at 
Bedriacum, near Mantua, where Otho was defeated, and in a fit of 
despair ended his life by his own hand after a reign of three months, 
A. D. 70. 

4. The reign of Vitellius was of eight months' duration. He is 
said to have proposed Nero for his model, and it was just that he 
should resemble him in his fate. Vespasian had obtained from Nero 
the charge of the war against the Jews, which he had conducted 
with ability and success, and was proclaimed emperor by his troops 
in the east. A great part of Italy submitted to Vespasian's generals ; 
and Vitellius meanly capitulated to save his life, by a resignation of 
the empire. The people, indignant at his dastardly spirit, compelled 
him to an effort of resistance ; but the attempt was fruitless. Priscus. 
o«e of the generals of Vespasian, took possession of Rome ; anil 
Vitellius was massacred, and his body flung into the Tiber. 

5. Vespasian, though of mean descent, was worthy of the empire, 
&\n\ reigned with high popularity for ten years. He possessed great 
clemency of disposition. His manners were affable and engaging, 
ar*d his mode of life was characterized by simplicity and frugality. 
He respected the ancient forms of the constitution, restored the sen- 
are to its deliberative rights, and acted by its authority in the admin- 
isti ation of all public affairs. The only blemish in his character was 
a tincture of avarice, and even that is greatly extenuated by the 
lau lable and patriotic use which he made of his revenues, tinder 
his reign, and by the arms of his son Titus, was terminated the war 
against the Jews. They had been brought under the yoke of Rome 
by Pompey, who took Jerusalem. They were governed for some 
time by Herod, as viceroy under Augustus. The tyranny of his so.i 
Archelaus was the cause of his banishment, and of the reduction of 

H 



86 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

hu'aea into the ordinary condition of a Roman province. The Jews 
rebelled on every slight occasion, and Nero had sent Vespasian to 
reduce them to order. He had just prepared for the siege of Jeru- 
sal ;m, when he was called to Rome to assume the government of the 
en pire. Titus wished to spare the city, and tried every means 
to prevail on the Jews to surrender ; but in vain. Their ruin was 
de sreed by Heaven. After an obstinate blockade of six months 
Jerusalem was taken by storm, the temple burnt to ashes, and the 
cify buried in ruins. The Roman empire was now in profound 
peace. Vespasian associated Titus in the imperial dignity, and 
soon after died, universally lamented, at the age of sixty-nine, A. 
D. 79. 

6. The character of Titus was humane, munificent, dignified, and 
splendid. His short reign was a period of great happiness and 
prosperity to the empire, and his government a constant example of 
virtue, justice, and beneficence. In his time happened that dreadful 
eruption of Vesuvius, which overwhelmed the cities of Herculaneum 
*nd Pompeii. The public losses from these calamities he repaired 
by the sacrifice of his fortune and revenues. He died in the third 
year of his reign, and fortieth of his age ; ever to be remembered 
by that most exalted epithet, deticice kumani genens {the delight of 
mankind). 

7. Domitian, the brother of Titus, was suspected of murdering him 
by poison, and succeeded to the empire, A. D. 31. He was a vicious 
and inhuman tyrant. A rebellion in Germany gave him occasion to 
signalize the barbarity of his disposition; and its consequences were 
long felt in the sanguinary punishments inflicted under the pretence 
of justice. The prodigal and voluptuous spirit of this reign was a 
singular contrast to its tyranny and inhumanity. The people were 
loaded with insupportable taxes to furnish spectacles and games for 
their amusement. The successes of Agricola in Britain threw a 
lustre on the Roman arms, no part of which reflected on the emperor, 
for he treated this eminent commander with the basest ingratitude. 
After fifteen tedious years this monster fell at last the victim of assas- 
sination, the empress herself conducting the plot for his murder, A 
D. 96. 

8. Gocceius Nerva, a Cretan by birth, was chosen emperor by the 
senate, from respect to the probity and virtues of his character. 
He was too old for the burden of government, and of a temper too 
placid for the restraint of rooted corruptions and enormities. His 
reign was weak, inefficient, and contemptible. His only act of real 
merit as a sovereign, was the adoption of the virtuous Trajan as his 
successor. Nerva died after a reign of sixteen months, A. D. 98. 

9. Ulpius Trajanus possessed every talent and every virtue that 
can adorn a sovereign. Of great military abilities, and an indefatiga- 
ble spirit of enterprise, he raised the Roman arms to their ancient 
splendour, and greatly enlarged the boundaries of the empire. He 
subdued the Dacians, conquered the Parthians, and brought under 
subjection Assyria, Mesopotamia, and Arabia Felix. Nor was he less 
eminent in promoting the happiness of his subjects, and the internal 
prosperity of the empire. His largesses were humane and munifi- 
cent. He was the friend and support of the virtuous indigent, and 
the liberal patron of every useful art and talent. His bounties were 
supplied by well judged economy in his private fortune, and a wise 
administration of the public finances. In his own life he was a man 
of simple manners, modest, affable, fond of the familiar intercourse 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 87 

of his friends, and sensible to all the social and benevolent affections. 
He merited the surname universally bestowed on him, Trajonm 
Optimus. He died at the ige of sixty-three, after a glorious reign of 
nineteen years, A, D. 118. 

10. iElius Adrianus, nephew of Trajan, and worthy to fill his place, 
was chosen emperor by the army in the east, and his title was 
acknowledged by all orders of the state. Me adopted a policy differ- 
ent from that of his predecessor. Judging the limits of the empire 
too extensive, he abandoned all the conquests of Trajan bounding 
the eastern provinces by the Euphrates. He visited in person all the 
provinces of the empire, reforming in his progress all abuses, reliev- 
ing his subjects of every oppressive burden., rebuilding the ruined 
cities, and establishing every where a regular and mild administra- 
tion, under magistrates of approved probity and humanity. I le gave 
a discharge to the indigent debtors of the state, and appointed liberal 
institutions for the education of the children of the poor. To the 
talents of an able politician he joined an excellent taste in th 2 liberal 
arts. His reign, which was of twenty-two years' duration, was an aera 
both of public happiness and splendour. In the last year of his life 
he bequeathed to the empire a double legacy, in adopting for his 
immediate successor Titus Aurelius Antoninus, and substituting An- 
nius Verus to succeed upon his death. These were the Antonines, 
who during forty years ruled the Roman empire with consummate 
wisdom, ability, and virtue. Adrian died A. JD. 1 38, at the age of 
sixty-two. 

SECTION XLIll. 
AGE OF THE ANTONINES, &c. 

1. The happiest reigns furnish the fewest events for the pen of 
history. Antoninus was the father of his people. He preferred 
peace to the ambition of conquest; yet in every necessary war 
the Roman arms had their wonted renown. The British province 
was enlarged by the enquests of Urbicus, and some formidable 
rebellions were subdued in Germany, Dacia, and the east. The 
domestic administration of the sovereign was dignified, splendid, and 
humane. With all the virtues of Numa, his love of religion, peace, 
and justice, he had the superior advantage of diffusing these blessings 
over a great portion of the world. He died at the age of seventy- 
four, after a reign of twenty-two years, A. D. 161. 

2. Annius Verus assumed, at his accession, the name of Marcus 
Aurelius Antoninus, and bestowed on his brother Lucius Verus a joint 
administration of the empire. The former was as eminent for the 
worth and virtues of his character, as the latter was remarkable for 
profligacy, meanness, and vice. Marcus Aurelius was attached boil" 
by nature and education to the Stoical philosophy, which he has ad 
mirably taught and illustrated in his Meditations. His own life wa& 
the best commentary on his precepts. The Parthians were repulsed 
in an attack upon the empire, and a rebellion of the Germans was 
subdued In these wars the mean and worthless Verus brought dis- 
grace upon the Roman name in every region where he commanded 
but fortunately relieved the empire of its fears by an early death. 
The residue of the reign of Marcus Aurelius was a continued bless- 
ing to his subjects. He reformed the internal policy of the state, 
regulated the government of the provinces, and visited himself, for 



88 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

the purposes of beneficence, the most distant quarters of his domin- 
ions. "He appeared," says an ancient author, " like some benevo- 
lent deity, diffusing around him universal peace and happiness." He 
died in rannonia, in the 59th year of his age, and 19th of his reign, 
A. D. 180. 

3. Commodus, his most unworthy son, succeeded to the empire 
on his death. He resembled in character his mother Faustina, a 
woman infamous for all manner of vice. Her profligacy was known 
to all but her husband Marcus, by whom she was regarded as a para- 
gon ol virtue. Commodus had an aversion to every rational and 
liberal pursuit, and a fond attachment to the sports of the circus and 
amphitheatre, the hunting of wild beasts, and the combats of boxers 
and gladiators. The measures of this reign were as unimportant as 
the character of the sovereign was contemptible. His concubine and 
some of his chief officers prevented their own destruction by assas- 
sinating the tyrant, in the 32d year of his age, and 13th of his 
reign, A. D. 193. 

4. The praetorian guards gave the empire to Publius Helvius 
Pertinax, a man of mean birth, who had risen to esteem by his vir- 
tues and military talents. He applied himself with zeal to the cor- 
rection of abuses; but the austerity of his government deprived him 
of the affections of a corrupted people. He had disappointed the 

'.army of a promised reward, and, after a reign of eighty-six days, 
was murdered in the imperial palace by the same hands which had 
placed him on the throne. 

5. The empire was now put up to auction by the praetorians, and 
was purchased by Didius Julianus ; while Pescenius Niger in Asia, 
Clodius Albinus in Britain, and Septimius Severus in Iiiyria, were 
each chosen emperor by the troops which they commanded. Se- 
verus marched to Rome, and, on his approach, the praetorians aban- 
doned Didius, who had failed to pay the stipulated price for his ele- 
vation : and the senate formally deposed to put him to death. Seve- 
rus being now master of Rome, prepared to reduce the provinces 
which had acknowledged the sovereignty of Niger and Albinus. 
These two rivals were successively subdued. Niger was slain in 
battle, and Albinus fell by his own hands. The administration of Se- 
verus was wise and equitable, but tinctured with despotic rigour. 
It was his purpose to erect the fabric of absolute monarchy, and all 
his institutions operated with able policy to that end. He possessed 
eminent military talents. He gloriously boasted, that, having re- 
ceived the empire oppressed with foreign and domestic wars, he left 
it in profound, universal, and honourable peace. He carried with 
him into Britain his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, whose unpromis- 
ing dispositions clouded his latter days. In this war the Caledonians 
under Fingal are said to have defeated, on the banks of the Carron, 
Caracul, the son of the king of the world. Severus died at York, in 
the 66th year of his age, after a reign of eighteen years, A. D. 21 1. 

6. The mutual hatred of Caracalla and Geta was increased by 
their association in the empire ; and the former, with brutal inhu- 
manity, caused his brother to be openly murdered in the arms of his 
mother. His reign, which was of six years' duration, and one con- 
tinued series of atrocities, was at length terminated by assassination, 
A D. 217. 

7. Those disorders in the empire which began with Commodus 
continued for about a century, till the accession of Diocletian. That 
interval was filled by the reigns of Heliogabalus, Alexander Severus, 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 89 

Marimin, Gordian, Decius, Gallus, Valerianus, Gallienus, Claudius, 
Aurelianus, Tacitus, Probus, and Carus ; a period of which the an- 
nals furnish neither amusement nor useful information. The single 
exception is the reign of Alexander Severus, a mild, beneficent, and 
enlightened prince, whose character shines the more from the con- 
trast of those who preceded and followed him. 

8. Diocletian began his reign A. D. 284, and introduced a new 
system of administration, dividing the empire into four governments, 
under as many princes. Maximian shared with him the title of 
Augustus, and Galerius an,AConstantius were declared Caesars. Each 
had his separate department or province, all nominally supreme, but 
in reality under the direction of the superior talents and authority of 
Diocletian : an unwise policy, which depended for its efficacy on 
individual ability alone. Diocletian and Maximian, trusting to the 
continuance of that order in the empire which their vigour had 
established, retired from sovereignty, and left the government in the 
hands of the Caesars ; but Constantius died soon after in Britain, and 
his son Constantine was proclaimed emperor at York, though Gale- 
rius did not acknowledge his title. Maximian, however, having once 
more resumed the purple, bestowed on Constantine his daughter in 
marriage, and thus invested him with a double title to empire. On 
the death of Maximian and Galerius, Constantine had no other com- 
petitor but Maxentius, the son of the former, and the contest between 
them was decided by the sword. Maxentius fell in battle, and Con- 
stantine remained sole master of the empire. 

9. The administration of Constantine was, in the beginning of his 
reign, mild, equitable, and politic. Though zealously attached to 
the christian faith, he made no violent innovations on the religion of 
the state. He introduced order and economy into the civil govern- 
ment, and repressed every species of oppression and corruption. 
But his natural temper was severe and cruel, and the latter part of 
his reign was as much deformed by intolerant zeal and sanguinary 
rigour, as the former had been remarkable for equity and benignity. 
From this unfavourable change of character he lost the affections of 
his subjects ; and, from a feeling probably of reciprocal disgust, he 
removed the seat of the Roman empire to Byzantium, now termed 
Constantinople. The court followed the sovereign; the opulent 
proprietors were attended by their slaves and retainers. Rome was 
m a few years greatly depopulated, and the new capital swelled at 
once to enormous magnitude. It was characterized by eastern 
splendour, luxury, and voluptuousness; and the cities of Greece 
were despoiled for its embellishments. Of the internal policy of 
the empire we shall treat in the next section. In an expedition 
against the Persians, Constantine died at Nicomedia, in the 30th 
year of his reigiu and 63d of his age, A. D. 337. In the time of 
Constantine the Goths had made several irruptions on the empire, 
and, though repulsed and beaten, began gradually to encroach on 
the provinces. 

H2 12 



90 ANCIENT HISTORY. 



SECTION XL1V. 

STATE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE AT THE TIME OF CON- 
STANTINE. HIS SUCCESSORS. 

1. In lieu of the ancient republican distinctions, which were 
founded chiefly on personal merit, a rigid subordination of rank and 
office now went through all the orders of the state. The magis- 
trates were divided into three classes, distinguished by the unmean- 
ing titles of, 1 , the illustrious ; 2, the respectable ; 3, the clarissimi. 
The epithet of illustrious was bestowed on, 1, the consuls and patri- 
cians ; 2, the praetorian praefects of Rome and Constantinople ; 3, the 
masters-general of the cavalry and infantry ; 4, the seven ministers 
of the palace. The consuls "were created by the sole authority of 
the emperor : their dignity was inefficient ; they had no appropriate 
function in the state, and their names served only to give the legal 
date to the year. The dignity of patrician was not, as in ancient 
times, a hereditary distinction, but was bestowed, as a title of honour, 
by the emperor on his favourites. From the time of the abolition of 
the praetorian bands by Constantine, the dignity of praetorian prae- 
fect was conferred on the civil governors of the four departments of 
the empire. These were, the East, Illyria, Italy, and the Gauls. 
They had the supreme administration of justice and of the finances, 
the power of supplying all the inferior magistracies in their district, 
and an appellative jurisdiction from all its tribunals. Independent 
of their authority, Rome and Constantinople had each its own prae- 
fect, who was the chief magistrate of the city. In the second class- 
the respectable, were the proconsuls of Asia, Achaia, and Africa, 
and the military comites and duces, generals of the imperial armies. 
The third class, clarissimi, comprehended the inferior governors 
and magistrates of the provinces, responsible to the prefects and 
their deputies. 

2. The intercourse between the court and provinces was main- 
tained by the construction of roads, and the institution of regular 

Costs or couriers ; under which denomination were ranked the num- 
erless spies of government, whose duty was to convey all sort of 
intelligence from the remotest quarter of ihe empire to its chief 
seat. Every institution was calculated to support the fabric of des- 
potism. Torture was employed for the discovery of crimes. Taxes 
and impositions of every nature were prescribed and levied by the 
sole authority of the emperor. The quantity and rate were fixed by a 
ce7isus made over all the provinces, and part was generally paid in 
money, part in the produce of the lands; a burden frequently found 
so grievous as to prompt to the neglect of agriculture. Every ob- 
ject of merchandise and manufacture was likewise highly taxed. 
Subsidies, moreover, were exacted from all the cities, under the 
name of free gifts, on various occasions of public concerns ; as the 
accession of an emperor, his consulate, the birth of a prince, a victory 
over the barbarians, or anv other event of similar importance. 

3. An impolitic distinction was made between the troops stationed 
in the distant provinces and those in the heart of the empire. The 
latter, termed palatines, enjoyed a higher pay and more peculiar 
favour, and, having less employment, spent their time in idleness and 
luxury : while the former, termed the borderers^ who, in fact, had the 



ANCIENT HISTORY 91 

care of the empire, and were exposed to perpetual hard service, had, 
with an inferior reward, the mortification of feeling themselves re- 
garded as of meaner rank than their fellow-soldiers. Constantine like- 
wise, from a timid policy of guarding against mutinies of the troops, 
reduced the legion from its ancient complement of 5,000, 6,000, 
7,000, and 8,000, to 1,000 or 1,500; and debased the body of the 
army by the intermixture of Scythians, Goths, and Germans. 

4. This immense mass of heterogeneous parts, which internally 
laboured with the seeds of dissolution and corruption, was kept to- 
gether for some time by the vigorous exertion of despotic author ty. 
The fabric was splendid and august ; but it wanted both that energy 
of constitution and that real dignity, which, hi former times, it derived 
from the exercise of heroic and patriotic virtues. 

5. Constantine, with a destructive policy, had divided the empire 
among five princes, three o( them his sons, and two nephews ; but 
Constantius, the youngest of the sons, finally got rid of all his com- 
petitors, and ruled the empire alone with a weak and impotent scep- 
tre. A variety of domestic broils, and mutinies of the troops against 
their generals, had left the western frontier to die mercy of the bar- 
barian nations. The Franks, Saxons, Alemanni, and Sarmatians, laid 
waste all the fine countries watered by the Rhine, and the Persians 
made dreadful incursions on the provinces of the east. Constantius 
indolently wasted his time in theological controversies, but was pre- 
vailed on to adopt one prudent measure, the appointment ot his 
cousin Julian to the dignity of Caesar. 

6. Julian possessed many heroic qualities, and his mind was formed 
by nature tor the sovereignty of a great people ; but, educated at 
Athens, in the schools of the Platonic philosophy, he had unfortunately 
conceived a rooted antipathy to the doctrines of Christianity. With 
every talent of a general, and possessing the confidence and affec- 
tion of his troops, he once more restored the glory of the Roman 
arms, and successfully repressed the invasions of the barbarians. 
His victories excited the jealousy of Constantius, who meanly re- 
solved to remove from his command the better part of his troops. The 
consequence was a declaration of the army, that it was their choice 
that Julian should be their emperor. Constantius escaped the igno- 
miny that awaited him by dying at this critical juncture, and Julian 
was immediately acknowledged sovereign of the Roman empire. 

7. The reformation of civil abuses formed the first object of his 
attention, which he next turned to the reformation, as he thought, 
of religion, by the suppression of Christianity. He began by reform- 
ing the pagan theology, and sought to raise the character of its 
priests, by inculcating purity of life and sanctity of morals; thus 
bearing involuntary testimony to the superior excellence, in those 
respects, of that religion which he laboured to abolish. Without 
persecuting he attacked the christians by the more dangerous policy 
of treating them with contempt, and removing them, as visionaries, 
from all employments of public trust. He refused them the benefit 
of the laws to decide their differences, because their religion forbade 
all dissensions ; and they were debarred the studies of literature and 
philosophy, which they could not learn but from pagan authors. He 
was himself, as a pagan, the slave of the most bigoted superstition, 
believing in omens and auguries, and fancying himself favoured with 
an actual intercourse with the gods and goddesses. To avenge the 
injuries which the empire had sustained from the Persians, Julian 
marched into the heart of Asia, and was for some time in the train 



V 



92 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

of conquest, when, in a fatal engagement, though crowned with 
victory, he was slain, at the age ofthirty-one, after a reign of three 
years, A. D. 363. 

8. The Roman army was dispirited by the death of its commander. 
They chose for their emperor Jovian, a captain of the domestic 
guards, and purchased a free retreat from the dominions of Persia 
By the ignominious surrender of five provinces, which had been ceded 
by a former sovereign to Galerius. The short reign of Jovian, a 
period of seven months, was mild and equitable. He favoured Chris- 
tianity, and restored its votaries to all their privileges as subjects. 
He died suddenly at the age of thirty-three. 

9. Valentinian was chosen emperor by the army on the death of 
Jovian; a man of obscure birth and severe manners, but of consider- 
able military talents. He associated with himself in the empire his 
brother Valens, to whom he gave the dominion of the eastern prov- 
inces, reserving to himself the western. The Persians, under Sapor, 
were making inroads on the former, and the latter was subject to 
continual invasion from the northern barbarians. They were suc- 
cessfully repelled by Valentinian in many battles ; and his domestic 
administration was wise, equitable, and politic. The christian reli- 
gion was favoured by the emperor, though not promoted by the 
persecution of its adversaries ; a contrast to the conduct of his 
brother Valens, who, intemperately supporting the Arian heresy, set 
the whole provinces in a flame, and drew a swarm of invaders upon 
the empire in the guise of friends and allies, who in the end entirely 
subverted it. These were the Goths, who, migrating from Scandi 
navia, had, in the second century, settled on the banks of the Palus 
Moeotis, and thence gradually extended their territory. In the reign of 
Valens they took possession of Dacia, and were known by the distinct 
appellation of Ostrogoths and Visigoths, or eastern and western Goths ; 
a remarkable people, whose manners, customs, government, and 
laws, are afterwards to be particularly noted. 

10. Valentinian died on an expedition against the Alemanni, and 
was succeeded in the empire of the west by Gratian, his eldest son, 
a boy of sixteen years of age, A. D. 367. Valens, in the east, was 
the scourge of his people. The Huns, a new race of barbarians, of 
Tartar or Siberian origin, now poured down on the provinces both 
of the west and east. The Goths, comparatively a civilized people, 
fled before them. The Visigoths, who were first attacked, requested 
protection from the empire, and Valens imprudently gave them a 
settlement in Thrace. r I he Ostrogoths made the same request, and* 
on refusal, forced their way into the same province. Valens gave 
them battle at Adrianople. His army was defeated, and he was slair 
in the engagement. The Goths, unresisted, ravaged Achaia and Pan 
nonia. 

11. Gratian, a youth c\t great worth, but of little energy of char- 
acter, assumed Theodosius as his colleague. On the early death of 
Gratian, and the minority of his son Valentinian II, 1 heodosius 
governed, witli great ability, both the eastern and western empire. 
The character of Theodosius, deservedly surnamed the great, was 
worthy of the best ages of the Roman state. He successfully repell- 
ed the encroachments of the barbarians, and secured, by wholesome 
laws, the prosperity of his people. He died, after a reign of 
eighteen years, assigning to his sons, Arcadius and Honorius, the 
separate sovereignties of east and west, A. D. 395. 



ANC ENT HISTORY. 



SECTION XLV. 



PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, FROM ITS INSTI- 
TUTION TO' THE EXTINCTION OF PAGANISM IN THE 
REIGN OF THEODOSIUS. 

1 . The reign of Theodosius was signalized by the downfal of the 
pagan superstition, and the full establishment of the christian religion 
in the Roman empire. This great revolution of opinions is highly 
worthy of attention, and naturally induces a retrospect to the condi- 

on of the christian church from its institution down to this period. 
It has been frequently remarked (because it is an obvious truth), 
that at the time of our Saviour's birtn a divine revelation seemed to 
be more peculiarly needed ; and that, from a concurrence of circum- 
stances, the state of the world was then uncommonly favourable for 
the extensive dissemination of the doctrines which it conveyed. The 
union of so many nations under one power, and the extension of civ- 
ilization, were tavourable to the progress of a religion which pre- 
scribed universal charity and benevolence. The gross superstitions 
of paganism, and its tendency to corrupt instead of purifying the 
morals, contributed to explode its influence with every thinking mind. 
Even the prevalent philosophy of the times, epicurism, more easily 
understood than the refinements of the Platonists, and more grateful 
than the severities of the Stoics, tended to degrade human nature to 
the level of the brute creation. The christian religion, thus neces- 
sary for the reformation of the world, found its chief partisans in those 
who were the friends of virtue, and its enemies among the votaries 
of vice. 

2. The persecution which the christians suffered from the Romans 
has been deemed an exception to that spirit of toleration which 
they showed to the religions of other nations ; but they were toler- 
ant only to those whose theologies were not hostile to their own. 
The religion of the Romans was interwoven with their political con- 
stitution. The zeal of the christians, aiming at the suppression of all 
idolatry, was naturally regarded as dangerous to the state ; and hence 
they were the object of hatred and persecution. In the first century 
the christian church suffered deeply under Nero and Domitian 
yet those persecutions had no tendency to check the progress of its 
doctrines. 

3. It is matter of question what was the form of the primitive 
church, and the nature of its government ; and on this head much 
difference of opinion obtains, not only between the catholics and prot 
estants, but between the different classes of the latter, as the Luther- 
ans and Calvinists. It is moreover an opinion, that our Saviour and 
his apostles, confining their precepts to the pure doctrines of religion, 
have left all christian societies to regulate their frame and govern- 
ment in the manner best suited to the civil constitutions of the coun- 
tries m which they are established. 

4. In the second century the books of the New Testament were 
collected into a volume by the elder fathers of the church, and re- 
ceived as a canon of faith. The Old Testament had been translat- 
ed from the Hebrew into Greek, by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 
28 i years before Christ. The early church suffered much from an 
absurd endeavour of the more learned of its votaries to reconcile its 



94 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

doctrines to the tenets c r the pagan philosophers : hence the sects of 
the Gnostics and Ammonbns, and the Platonising christians. In the 
second century the Greek churches hegan to form provincial associ 
ations, and to establish general rules of government and discipline. 
Assemblies were held, termed synodoi and concilia, over which a me- 
tropolitan presided. A short time after arose the superior order of 
patriarch, presiding over a large district of the christian world ; and 
a subordination taking place even among these, the bishop of Rome 
was acknowledged the chief of the patriarchs. Persecution still at- 
tended the early church, even under those excellent princes, Trajan, 
Adrian, and the Antonines ; and, in the reign of Severus, all the prov- 
inces of the empire were stained with the blood of the martyrs. 

5. The third century was more favourable to the progress of Chris- 
tianity and the tranquillity of its disciples. In those times it suffered 
less from the civil arm than from the pens of the pagan philosopers, 
Torphyry, Philostratus, &,c. : but these attacks called forth the zeal 
and talents of many able defenders, as Origen, Dionysius, and Cy- 
prian. A part of the Gauls, Germany, and Britain, received the light 
of the gospel in this century. 

6. In the fourth century the christian church was alternately per- 
secuted and cherished by the Roman emperors. Among its oppres- 
sors we rank Diocletian, Galerius, and Julian; among its favourers, 
Constantine and his sons, Valentinian, Valcns, Gratian, and the excel- 
lent Theodosius, in whose reign the pagan superstition came to its 
final period. 

7 From the age of Numa to the reign of Gratian the Romans 
preserved the regular succession of the several sacerdotal colleges 
the pontiffs, augurs, vestals, Jlamines, salii. &c, whose authority, 
though weakened in the latter ages, was still protected by the laws. 
Even the christian emperors held, like their pagan predecessors, the 
office of poniifex maximus. Gratian was the first who refused that 
ancient dignity as a profanation. In the time of Theodosius the 
cause of Christianity and of paganism was solemnly debated in the 
Roman senate between Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, the champion 
of the former, and Symmachus, the defender of the latter. The 
cause of Christianity was triumphant, and the senate issued its de- 
cree for the abolition of paganism, whose downfal in the capital was 
soon followed by its extinction in the provinces. Theodosius, with 
able policy, permitted no persecution of the ancient religion, which 
perished with more rapidity, because its fall was gentle and un- 
resisted. 

8. But the christian church exhibited a superstition in some re- 
spects little less irrational than polytheism, in the worship of saint? 
and relics; and many novel tenets, unfounded in the precepts oi 
our Saviour and his apostles, were manifestly borrowed from the 

Eagan schools. The doctrines of the Platonic philosophy seem to 
ave led to the notions of an intermediate state of purification, ce- 
libacy of the priests, ascetic mortifications, penances, and monastic 
seclusion. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 



SECTION XL VI. 



EXTINCTION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST. 

1 . In the reigns of Arcadius and Honorius, the sons and successors 
of Theodosius, the barbarian nations established themselves in the 
frontier provinces both of the east and west. Theodosius had com- 
mitted the government to Rufinus and Stilicho during the nonage of 
his sons ; and their fatal dissensions gave every advantage to the 
enemies of the empire. The Huns, actually invited by Rutinus, 
overspread Armenia, Cappadocia, and Syria. The Goths, under 
Alaric, ravaged to the borders of Italy, and laid waste Achaia to the 
Peloponnesus. Stilicho, an able general, made a noble stand against 
these invaders ; but his plans were frustrated by the machinations 
of his rivals, and the weakness of Arcadius, who purchased an 
ignominious peace, by ceding to Alaric the whole of Greece. 

2. Alaric, now styled king of the Visigoths, prepared to add Italy 
to his new dominions. He passed the Alps, and was carrying all 
before him, when, amused by the politic Stilicho with the prospect 
of a new cession of territory, he was attacked unawares, and defeated 
by that general, then commanding the armies of Honorius. The 
emperor triumphantly celebrated, on that occasion, the eternal defeat 
of the Gothic nation ; an eternity bounded by the lapse of a few 
months. In this interval, a torrent of the Goths breaking down upon 
Germany forced the nations whom they dispossessed, the Suevi, 
Alani, and Vandals, to precipitate themselves upon Italy. They 
joined their arms to those of Alaric, who, thus reinforced, determined 
to overwhelm Rome. The policy of Stilicho made him change his 
purpose, on the promise of 4,000 pounds weight of gold ; a promise 
repeatedly broken by Honorius, and its violation finally revenged by 
Alaric, by the sack and plunder of the city, A. D. 410. With gene- 
rous magnanimity he spared the lives of the vanquished, and, with 
singular liberality of spirit, was anxious to preserve every ancient 
edi.ice from destruction. 

*. Alaric, preparing now for the conquest of Sicily and Africa, 
died at this aera of his highest glory; and Honorius, instead of profit- 
ing by this event to recover his lost provinces, made a treaty with 
his successor Ataulfus, gave him in marriage his sister Placidia, and 
secured his friendship by ceding to him a portion of Spain, while a 
great part of what remained had before been occupied by the Van- 
dals. He allowed soon after to the Burgundians a just title to their 
conquests in Gaul. Thus the western empire was passing by de- 
grees from the dominion of its ancient masters. 

4. The mean and dissolute Arcadius died in the year 408, leaving 
(he eastern empire to his infant son Theodosius II. Theodosius was 
a weak prince, and his sister Pulcheria governed the empire, with 
prudence and ability, for the space of forty years. Honorius died in 
the year 423. The laws of Arcadius and Honorius are, with a few 
exceptions, remarkable for their wisdom and equity ; which is a 
singular circumstance, considering the personal character of those 
princes, and evinces at least that they employed some able ministers. 

5. The Vandals, under Genseric, subdued the Roman province 
in Africa. The Huns, in the east, extended their conquests fror t 
the borders of China to the Baltic sea. Under Attila they laid waste 



9C ANCIENT HISTORY. 

Moesia and Thrace ; and Theodosius, after a mean attempt to mur 
der the barbarian general, ingloriously submitted to pay him an an- 
nual tribute. It was in this crisis of universal decay that the Britons 
implored the Romans tc defend them against the Picts and Scots, but 
received for answer, that they had nothing to bestow on them but 
compassion. The Britons, in despair, sought aid from the Saxons 
and Angles, who seized, as their property, the country which they 
were invited to protect, and founded, in the fifth and sixth centuries, 
the kingdoms of the Saxon heptarchy. (See Part II, Sect. XII, § 5.) 

6. Attila, with an army of 500,000 men, threatened the total de- 
struction of the empire. He was ably opposed by iEtius, general of 
Valentinian III., now emperor of the west. Valentinian was shut up 
in Rome by the arms ot the barbarian, and at length compelled to 
purchase a peace On the death of Attila his dominions were dis- 
membered by his sons, whose dissensions gave temporary relief to 
the falling empire of Rome. 

7. After Valentinian III. we have in the west a succession of 
princes, or rather names, for the events of their reigns merit no 
detail. In the reign of Romulus, surnamed Augustulus, the son of 
Orestes, the empire of the west came to a final period. Odoacer, 
prince of the Heruli, subdued Italy, and spared the life of Augustulus, 
on condition of his resigning the throne, A. D. 476. From the build- 
ing of Rome to the extinction of the western empire, A. D. 476, is 
a period of 1224 years. 

8. We may reduce to one ultimate cause the various circum- 
stances that produced the decline and fall of this once magnificent 
fabric. The ruin of the Roman empire was the inevitable conse- 
quence of its greatness. The extension of its dominion relaxed 
the vigour of its frame ; the vices of the conquered nations infected 
the victorious legions, and foreign luxuries corrupted their command- 
ers ; selfish interest supplanted the patriotic affection ; the martial 
spirit was purposely debased by the emperors, who dreaded its 
effects on their own power; and tho whole mass, thus weakened 
and enervated, fell an easy prey to the torrent of barbarians which 
overwhelmed it. 

9. The Herulian dominion in Italy was of short duration. Theo- 
doric, prince of the Ostrogoths (afterwards deservedly surnamed 
thegreat), obtained permission of Zeno, emperor of the east, to at- 
tempt the recovery of Italy, and a promise of its sovereignty as the 
reward of his success. The whole nation of the Ostrogoths attend- 
ed the standard of Theodoric, who was victorious in repeated en- 
gagements, and at length compelled Odoacer to surrender all Italy to 
the conqueror. The Romans had tasted happiness under the govern- 
ment of Odoacer; but their happiness was increased under the do- 
minion of Theodoric, who possessed every talent and virtue of a sov- 
ereign. His equity and clemency rendered him a blessing to his 
subjects. He allied himself with all the surrounding nations, the 
Franks, Visigoths, Burgundians, and Vandals. He left a peaceable 
sceptre to his grandson Athalaric, during whose infancy his mother 
Amalasonte governed with such admirable wisdom and moderation, as 
left her subjects no real cause of regret for the loss of her father. 

10. While such was the state of Gothic Italy, the empire of the 
east was under the government of Justinian, a prince of mean ability, 
vain, capricious, and tyrannical. Yet the Roman name rose for a 
while from its abasement by the merit of his generals. Belisarius was 
the support of his throne; yet Justinian treated him with the most 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 97 

shocking ingratitude. The Persians were at this time the most for- 
midable enemies of the empire, under their sovereigns Cabades and 
Cosrhoes ; and from the latter, a most able prince, Justinian meanly 
purchased a peace, by a cession of territory, and an enormous trib- 
ute in gold. The civil factions of Constantinople, arising from the 
most contemptible of causes, the disputes of the performers in the 
circus and amphitheatre threatened to hurl Justinian from the 
throne, but were fortunately composed by the arms and the policy of 
Belisarius. This great general overwhelmed the Vandal sovereignty 
of Africa, and recovered that province to the empire. He wrested 
taly from its Gothic sovereign, and once more restored it for a short 
time to the dominion of its ancient masters. 

11. Italy was recovered to the Goths by the heroic Totila, who 
besieged and took the city of Rome, but forebore to destroy it at 
(he request of Belisarius. The fortunes of Belisarius were now in 
the wane. He was compelled to evacuate Italy, and, on his return 
to Constantinople, his long services were repaid with disgrace. He 
was superseded in the command of the armies by the eunuch Narses, 
who defeated Totila in a decisive engagement, in which the Gothic 
prince was slain. Narses governed Italy with great ability for thir- 
teen years, when he was ungratefully recalled by Justin II. the suc- 
cessor of Justinian. He invited the Lombards to avenge his injuries ; 
and this new tribe of invaders overran and conquered the country, 
A. D. 568. 



SECTION XLVII. 

OF THE ORIGIN, MANNERS, AND CHARACTER OF THE 
GOTHIC NATIONS, BEFORE THEIR ESTABLISHMENT IN 
THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 

1. The history and manners of the Gothic nations are curious 
objects of inquiry, from their influence on the constitutions and na- 
tional character of most of the modern kingdoms of Europe. As the 
present inhabitants of these kingdoms are a mixed race, compounded 
of the Goths and of the nations whom they subdued, the laws, man- 
ners, and institutions of the modern kingdoms are the result of this 
conjunction ; and in so far as these are different from the usages prev- 
alent before this intermixture, they are, in all probability, to be 
traced from the ancient manners and institutions of those northern 
tribes. We purpose to consider the original character of the 
Gothic nations, and the change of their manners on their establish- 
ment in the Roman empire. 

2. The Scandinavian chronicles attribute to the ancient inhabitants 
of that country an Asiatic origin, and inform us that the Goths were 
a colony of Scythians, who migrated thither from the banks of the 
Black sea and the Caspian : but these chronicles do not fix the period 
of this migration, which some later writers suppose to have been 
1 ,000 years, and others only 70, before the christian sera. Odin, the 
chief deity of the Scandinavians, was the god of the Scythians. 
Sigga, a Scythian prince, is said to have undertaken a distant expedi- 
tion, and, after he had subdued several of the Sarmatian tribes, to 
have penetrated into the northern parts of Germa-ny, and thence 
into Scandinavia. He assumed the honours of divinity, and the title 
of Odin, his national god. He conquered Denmark, Sweden, and 

I 13 



98 AJNCiENT HISTORY. 

Norway, and gave wise and salutary laws to the nations which he 
had suhdued by his arms. 

3. The agreement in manners between the Scythians and the 
ancient Scandinavian nations, corroborates the accounts given in the 
northern chronicles of the identity of their origin. The description 
of the manners of the Germans by Tacitus (though this people was 
probably not of Scythian, but of Celtic origin) may, in many partic- 
ulars, be applied to the ancient nations of Scandinavia ; and the 
same description coincides remarkably with the account given by 
Herodotus of the manners of the Scythians. Their life was spent 
in hunting, pasturage, and predatory war. Their dress, their weap- 
ons, their food, their respect for their women, their religious wor- 
ship, were the same. They despised learning, and had no other 
records for many ages than the songs of their bards. 

4. The theology of the Scandinavians was most intimately con- 
nected with their manners. They held three great principles or 
fundamental doctrines of religion : " To serve the Supreme Being 
with prayer and sacrifice ; to do no wrong or unjust action ; and to 
be intrepid in tight." These principles are the key to the Edda, or 
sacred book of the Scandinavians, which, though it contains the sub- 
stance of a very ancient religion, is not a work of high antiquity, 
being compiled in the thirteenth century by Snorro Sturleson, 
supreme judge of Iceland. Odin, characterized as the terrible and 
severe god, the father of carnage, the avenger, is the principal deity 
of the Scandinavians ; from whose union with Frea, the heavenly 
mother, sprung various subordinate divinities; as Thor, who per- 
petually wars against Loke and his evil giants, who envy the power 
of Odin, and seek to destroy his works. Among the inferior deities 
are the virgins of the Valhalla, whose ofhce is to minister to the he- 
roes in paradise. The favourites of Odin are all who die in battle, or, 
what is equally meritorious, by their own hand. The timid wretch, 
who allows himself to perish by disease or age, is unworthy of the 
joys of paradise. These joys are, fighting, ceaseless slaughter, and 
drinking beer out of the skulls of their enemies, with a renovation 
of life, to furnish a perpetuity of the same pleasures. 

5. As the Scandinavians believed this world to be the work of 
some superior intelligences, so they held all nature to be constantly 
under the regulation of an almighty will and power, and subject 
to a fixed and unalterable destiny. These notions had a wonderful 
effect on the national manners, and on the conduct of individuals. 
The Scandinavian placed his sole delight in war : he entertained an 
absolute contempt of danger and of death, and his glory was estimat- 
ed by the number which he had slain in battle. The death-song of 
Regner Lodbrok, who comforts himself in his last agonies by recount- 
ing all the acts of carnage which he had committed m his life-time, 
is a faithful picture of the Scandinavian character. 

6. We have remarked the great similarity of the manners of the 
Scandinavians and the ancient Germans. These nations seem, how- 
ever, to have had a different origin. The Germans, as well as the 
Gauls, were branches of that great original nation termed Celtce, who 
inhabited most of the countries of Europe south of the Baltic, before 
they were invaded by the northern tribes from Scandinavia. The 
CeltaB were all of the druidical religion, a system different from the 
belief and worship of the Scandinavians, but founded nearly on the 
same principles ; and the Goths, in their progress, intermixing with 
the Germans, could not fail to adopt, in part, the notions of a kindred 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 99 

religion. Druidism acknowledged a god who delighted in blood 
shed, taught the immortality of the soul, and inculcated the contempt 
of danger and of death. Tacitus remarks that the ancient Germans 
had neither temples nor idols. The open air was the temple of the 
divinity, and a consecrated grove the appropriated place for prayer 
and sacrifice, which none but the priests were allowed to enter. 
The chief sacrifices were human victims, most probably the prison- 
ers taken in war. The druids heightened the sanctity of their char- 
acter by concealing the mysteries of their worship. They had the 
highest influence over the minds of the people, and thus found it 
easy to conjoin a civil authority with the sacerdotal ; a policy which 
in the end led to the destruction of the druidical system ; for the 
Romans found no other way of securing their conquests over any o 
the Celtic nations, but by exterminating the druids. 

7. Whatever difference of manners there may have been amon^ 
the various nations or tribes of Gothic origin, the great features oi 
their character appear to have been the same. Nature, education, 
and prevailing habits, all concurred to form them for an intrepid 
and conquering people. Their bodily frame was invigorated by 
the climate which they inhabited ; they were inured to danger and 
fatigue ; war was their habitual occupation ; they believed in an un- 
alterable destiny, and were taught by their religion that a heroic 
sacrifice of life gave certain assurance of eternal happiness. Hov* 
could a race of mec so characterized fail to be the conquerors of the 
world? 



SECTION XLV1II. 

OF THE MANNERS, LAWS, AND GOVERNMENT OF THE 
GOTHIC NATIONS, AFTER THEIR ESTABLISHMENT IN THE 
ROMAN EMPIRE. 

1. It has been erroneously supposed that the same ferocity of 
manners, which distinguished the Goths in their original seats, at- 
tended their successors in their new establishments in the provinces 
of the Roman empire. Modern authors have given a currency to 
this false supposition. Voltaire, in describing the middle ages, paints 
the Goths in all the characters of horror ; as " a troop of hungry 
wolves, foxes, and tigers, driving before them the scattered timid 
herds, and involving all in ruin and desolation." The accounts of 
historians most worthy of credit will dissipate this injurious preju- 
dice, and show those northern nations in a more favourable point of 
view, as not unworthy to be the successors of the Romans. 

2. JBefore their settlement in the southern provinces of Europe, 
the Goths were no longer idolaters, but christians; and their mo 
rality was suitable to the religion which they professed. Salvianus, 
nishop of Marseilles, in the fifth century, draws a parallel between 
the manners of the Goths and of the Romans, highly to the credit oi 
the former. Grotius, in his publication of Procopius and Jornandes, 
remarks, as a strong testimony to their honourable character as a 
nation, that no province once subdued by the Goths ever voluntarily 
withdrew itself from their government. 

3. It is not possible to produce a more beautiful picture of an 
excellent administration than that of the Gothic monarchy in Italy 
under Theodoric the great Though master of the country by 



100 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

conquest, yet he was regarded by his subjects with <?mj affection ot 
a native sovereign. He retained the Roman laws, wad, as nearly 
as possible, the ancient political regulations. In supplying all civil 
offices of state he preferred the native Romans. It w«a his care to 
preserve every monument of the ancient grandeur of the empire, 
and to embellish the cities by new works of beauty and utility. In 
the imposition and levying ot taxes he showed the most humane in- 
dulgence on every occasion of scarcity or calamity. His laws were 
dictated by the most enlightened prudence and benevolence, and 
framed on that principle wnich he nobly inculcated in his instructions 
to the Roman senate, M Benigni principis est, non tarn delia% velle pu- 
nire, quam tollere." It is the duty of' a benign prince to be disposed to 
prevent rather tlian to punish offences. The historians of ihe times 
delight in recounting the examples of his munificence and humanity. 
Partial as he was to the Arian heresy, many even of the catholic 
fathers have done the most ample justice to his merits, acknowledging 
that, under hu reign, the church enjoyed a high measure ©f pros- 
perity. Such was Theodoric the great, who is justly termed by Si- 
donius Apollinaris, Romance, decus colum&nque gentis {the glory and the 
support of the Roman nation). 

4. But a single example could not warrant a general inference 
with regard to the merits of a whole people. The example of 
Theodoric is not single. If it does not find a complete parallel, it 
is at least nearly approached to in the similar characters of Alaric, 
Amalasonte, and Totila. Alaric, compelled by his enemy's breach 
of faith to revenge himself by the sack of Rome, showed even in 
that revenge a noble example of humanity. No blood was shed 
without necessity ; the churches were inviolable asylums ; the hon 
our of the women was preserved ; the treasures of the city were 
saved from plunder. Amalasonte, the daughter of Theodoric. 
repaired to her subjects the loss of her father, by the equity ana 
wisdom of her administration. She trained her son to the stuay of 
literature and of every polite accomplishment, as the best means of 
reforming and enlightening his people. Totila, twice master of 
Rome, which he won by his arms after an obstinate resistance, imi- 
tated the example of Alaric in his clemency to the vanquished, and 
in his care to preserve every remnant of ancient magnificence from 
destruction. He restored the senate to its authority, adorned Rome 
with useful edifices, regulated its internal policy, and took a noble 
pride in reviving the splendour and dignity of the empire. Habitavit 
cum Romanis, says a contemporary author, tanquam pater cum Jiliis. 
He lived with the Romans as another -with his children. 

5. The stem of the Gothic nation divided itself into two great 
oranches, the Ostrogoths, who remained in Pannonia, and the West- 
rogoths or Visigoths, so termed from their migrating thence to the 
west of Europe. Italy was possessed by the latter under Alaric, and 
oy the former under Theodoric. The Visigoths, after the death of 
Alaric, withdrew into Gaul, and obtained from Honorius the province 
of Aquitaine, of which Thoulouse was the capital. When expelled 
from that province by the Franks, they crossed the Pyrenees, 
and, settling in Spain, made Toledo the capital of their kingdom. 
The race of the Visigoth princes was termed the Balti, that of the 
Ostrogoths the Jimali. The Ostrogoths enforced in their dominions 
the observance of the Roman laws ; the Visigoths adhered to a code 
compiled by their own sovereigns, and founded on the ancient man- 
ners and usages of their nations. From this code, therefore, we may 



AJNCIENT HISTORY. 101 

derive much information relative to the genius and character of this 
ancient people. 

6. It is enacted by the laws of the Visigoths that no judge shall 
becide in any lawsuit, unless he find in that book a law applicable to 
the case. All causes that fall not under this description are reserved 
for the decision of the sovereign. The penal laws are severe, but 
tempered with great equity. No punishment can affect the heirs of 
the criminal : Omnia crimina suos sequantur auctores, — et ille solus judi- 
cetur culpabilis qui culpaiula commiserit, et crimen cum illo quijecerit 
moriatur. All crimes snail attach to their authors, — and he alone shall be 
judged culpable, who hath committed offences, and the crime shall die with 
him who hath committed it. Death was the punishment of the murder 
of a freeman, and perpetual infamy of the murder of a slave. Pe- 
cuniary fines were enacted for various subordinate offences, accord- 
ing to their measure of criminality. An adulterer was delivered in 
bondage to the injured husband ; and the free woman who had com- 
mitted adultery with a married man, became the slave of his wife. 
No physician was allowed to visit a female patient, except in the 
presence of her nearest kindred. The lex talionis {the law of retalia- 
tion) was in great observance for such injuries as admitted it. It was 
even carried so far ? that the incendiary of a house was burnt alive. 
The trials by judicial combat, by ordeal, and by the judgment of 
God, which were in frequent use among the Franks and Normans, 
had no place among the Visigoths. Montesquieu has erroneously 
asserted, that in all the Gothic nations it was usual to judge the 
litigants by the law of their own country ; the Roman by the Roman 
law, the Frank by the law of the Franks, the Aleman by the law 
of the Alemans. On the contrary, the Visigoth code prohibits the 
lawsof all other nations within their territories. JVolumus sive Rch 
manis legibus, sive alienis institutionibus, amplius convexari. We will not 
be controlled by the Roman laws, nor by foreign institutions. The law9 
of the Franks and Lombards are remarkable for their wisdom and 
judicious policy. 

7. The government of the Goths, after their settlement in the 
Roman provinces, was monarchical. It was at first elective, and 
afterwards became hereditary. The sovereign on his death-bed 
appointed his successor, with the advice or consent of his grandees. 
Illegitimacy did not disqualify from succession or nomination to the 
throne. 

8. The dukes and counts were the chief officers under the Gothic 
government. The duke {dux exercitm) was the commander in chief 
of the troops of the province ; the count {comes) was the highest 
civil magistrate. But these offices frequently intermixed their func- 
tions, the count being empowered, on sudden emergencies, to assume 
a military command, and the duke, on some occasions, warranted to 
exercise judicial authority. In general, however, their departments 
were distinct. Ofcomites there were various orders, with distinct offi- 
cial powers; as, comes, cubiculi, chamberlain, comes stabuli, constable, &c. 
These various officers were the proceres or grandees of the kingdom, 
by whose advice the sovereign conducted himself in important mat- 
ters of government, or in the nomination of his successor; but we do 
not find that they had a voice in the framing of laws, or in the im- 
position of taxes ; and the prince himself had the sole nomination to 
all offices of government, magistracies, and dignities. 



102 ANCIENT HISTORY. 

SECTION XLIX. 
METHOD OF STUDYING ANCIENT HISaoRY. 

1. A general and concise view of ancient history may be acquired 
oy the perusal of a very few books ; as that part of the Cours d? Etude 
of the Abbe Condillac which regards the history of the nations of 
antiquity : the Elements of General History by the Abbe Millot, part 
1st; the Epitome of Turselline, with the notes of L'Agneau, part 
1st; or the excellent Compendium Histories Universalis, by professor 
Oiferhaus of Groningen. The two first of these works have the 
merit of uniting a spirit of reflection with a judicious selection of 
events. The notes of L'Agneau to the Epitome of Turselline con- 
tain a great store of geographical and biographical information. 
The work of Oflerhaus is peculiarly valuable, as uniting sacred with 
profane history, and containing most ample references to the ancient 
authors. The Discours sur PHistoire Universelle, by the bishop 
of Meaux, is a work of higii merit, but is not adapted to convey in- 
formation to the uninstructed. It is more useful to those who have 
already studied history in detail, for uniting in the mind the great 
current of events, and recalling to the memory their order and con- 
nexion. 

But the student who wishes to derive the most complete advan- 
tage from history, must not confine himself to such general or com- 
pendious views ; he must resort to the original historians of ancieir* 
times, and to the modem writers who have treated with amplitude 
ol particular periods. It may be useful to such students to point 
out the order in which those historians may be most profitably 
perused. 

2. Next to the historical books of the Old Testament, the most 
ancient history worthy of perusal is that of Herodotus, which com 
prehends the annals of Lydia, Ionia, Lycia, Egypt, Persia, Greece, 
and Macedonia, during above 230 years preceding 479 A. C. 

Book 1. History of Lydia from Gyges to Croesus. Ancient Ionia. 
Manners of the Persians, Babylonians, &,c. History of Cyrus the 
Elder. 

B. 2. History of Egypt, and Manners of the Egyptians. 

B. 3. History of Cambyses. Persian Monarchy under Darius 
Hystaspes. 

B. 4. History of Scythia, 

B. 5. Persian Embassy to Macedon. Athens, Lacedsemon, Corinth, 
at the same period. 

B. 6. Kings of Lacedaemon. War of Persia against Greece, to the 
battle of Marathon. 

B. 7. The same War, to the battle of Thermopylae. 

B. 8. The Naval Battle of Salamis. 

B. 9. The Defeat and Expulsion of the Persians from Greece. 

(The merits of Herodotus are shortly characterized in Sect 
XXII, § 1.) 

3. A more particular account of the periods treated by Herodotus 
may be found in Justin, lib. 1, 2, 3, and 7 ; in the Cyropedia of Xeno- 
phon ; in the Lives of Aristides, Themistocles, Cimon, Miltiades, and 
rausanias, written by Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos; and in the 
lives of Anaximander, Zeno, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Democri- 
tus, by Diogenes Laertius. 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 3 

4. The Grecian history is taken up by Thucydides from the 
period where Herodotus ends, and is continued for seventy years, to 
the twenty-first of the Peloponnesian war. (This work characterized, 
Sect. XXII, §2.) This period is more amply illustrated by perusing 
the 11th and 12th books of Diodorus Siculus; the Lives of Alcibia- 
des, Chabrias, Thrasybulus, and Lysias, by Plutarch and Nepos ; the 
2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th books of Justin; and the 14th and 15th chapters 
of the 1st book of Orosius. 

5. Next to Thucydides the student ought to peruse the 1st and 
2d books of Xenophon's History of Greece, which comprehends the 
narrative of the Peloponnesian war, with the contemporary history of 
the Medes and Persians ; then the expedition of Cyrus {Anabasis), and 
the continuation of the history to its conclusion with the battle of 
Mantinea. (Xenophon characterized, Sect. XXII, § 3.) For illustrat 
ing this period we have the Lives of Lysander, Agesilaus, Artaxerxes, 
Conon, and Datames, by Plutarch and Nepos ; the 4th, 5th, and 6th 
books of Justin ; and the 13th and 16th books of Diodorus Siculus. 

6. After Xenophon let the student read the 15th and 16th books 
of Diodorus, which contain the history of Greece and Persia, from 
the battle of Mantinea to the reign of Alexander the great. (Diodorus 
characterized, Sect XXII, § 5.) To complete this period let him 
read the Lives of Dion, Iphicrates, Timotheus, Phocion, and Timo- 
leon, by Nepos. 

7. For the history of Alexander the great we have the admirable 
works of Arrian and Quintus Curtius. (Arrian characterized ? Sect 
XXII, § 8.) Curtius possesses great judgment in the selection of 
facts, with much elegance and perspicuity of diction. He is a good 
moralist and a good patriot; but his passion for embellishment 
derogates from the purity of history, and renders his authority sus- 
picious. 

8. For the continuation of the history of Greece from the death 
of Alexander, we have the 18th, 19th, and 20th books of Diodorus; 
the history of Justin from the 13th book to the end; and the Lives 
of the principal personages written by Plutarch. The history of 
Justin is a judicious abridgment of a much larger work by Trogus 
Pompeius, which is lost. Justin excels in the delineation of charac- 
ters, and in purity of style. 

9. I have mentioned the Lives of Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos 
as the best supplement to the account of particular periods of ancient 
history. It is the highest praise of Plutarch that his writings are 
admirable for their morality, and furnish instructive lessons of active 
virtue. He makes us familiarly acquainted with the great men of 
antiquity, and chiefly delights in painting their private character and 
manners. The short Lives written by Nepos show great judgment, 
and a happy selection of such facts as display the genius and charac 
ter of his heroes. They are written with purity and elegance. 

10. For the Roman History in its early periods we have the An 
tiquities of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which bring down the his 
tory of Rome to 412 A. U. C. They are chiefly valuable, as illus 
trating the manners and customs, the rites civil and religious, and the 
laws of the Roman state. But the writer is too apt to frame hypoth- 
eses, and to give views instead of narratives. We expect these in 
the modern writers who treat of ancient times, but cannot tolerate 
them in the sources of history. 

11. The work of Livy is far more valuable than that of Dio- 
nysius. It is a perfect model of history, both as to matter and compo- 



104 ANCIENT HISTORY 

sition. (Characterized, Sect. XXXVI, § 10.) Of 132 books only 35 
remain, and those are interrupted by a considerable chasm. The 
first decade (or ten books) treats of a period of 460 years ; the sec- 
ond decade, containing seventy-five years, is lost; the third contains 
the second Punic war, including eighteen years ; the fourth contains 
the war against Philip of Macedon, and the Asiatic war against Anti- 
ochus, a space of twenty-three years. Of the fifth decade there are 
only five books ; and the remainder, which reaches to the death of 
Drusus, 746, A. U. C. together with the second decade, have been 
supplied by frreinshemius. To supply the chasm of the second de- 
cade the student ought to read, together with the epitome of those 
lost books, the first and second books of Polybius ; the 17th, 18th, 
22d, and 23d books of Justin ; the lives of Marcellus and Fabius 
Maximus by Plutarch ; and the Punic and Illyrian wars by Appian. 

12. The liistory of Polybius demands a separate and attentive 
perusal, as an admirable compendium of political and military in- 
struction. Of forty books of general history we have only five en- 
tire, and excerpts of the following twelve. Polybius treats of the 
history of the Romans, and of the nations with whom they were at 
war, from the beginning of the second Punic war to the beginning of 
the war with Macedonia, comprising in all a period of about fifty 
years. Of the high estimation in which Polybius was held by the 
authors of antiquity we have sufficient proof in the encomiums be- 
stowed on him by Cicero, Strabo, Josephus, and Plutarch ; and in the 
use which Livy has made of his history, in adopting his narratives 
by a translation nearly literal. 

13. The work of Appian, which originally consisted of twenty 
books, from the earliest period of the Roman history down to the 
age of Adrian, is greatly mutilated ; and there remains only his 
account of the Syrian, Parthian, Mithridatic, Spanish, Punic, and 
Illyrian wars. His narrative of each of these wars is remarkably 
distinct and judicious ; and his composition, on the whole, is chaste 
and perspicuous. After the history of Appian the student should re- 
sume Livy, from the beginning of the third decade, or 21st book, to 
the end. Then he may peruse with advantage the Lives of Hanni- 
bal, Scipio Africanus, Flaminius. Paulus iEmilius, the elder Cato, the 
Gracchi, Marius, Sy 11a, the youff*er Cato, Sertorius. Lucullus, Julius 
Caesar, Cicero, Pompey, and Brutus, by Plutarch. 

14. Sallusfs histories of the Jugurthine war and of the conspiracy 
of Catiline come next in order. (Saiiust characterized, Sect. XXXVI, 
§ 8.) Then follow the Commentaries of Caesar, remarkable for 
perspicuity of narration, and a happy union of brevity with elegant 
simplicity of style. (Sect. XXXIV, § 9.) The epitomes of Florus and 
of veleius Paterculus may be perused with advantage at this period 
of the course. The latter is a model for abridgment of history, in 
khe opinion of the president Henault. 

15. For the history of Rome under the first emperors we have 
Suetonius and Tacitus; and for the subsequent reigns, the series of 
(he minor historians, termed Historic Augusta Scripiores {writers of 
august history), and the Byzantine writers. Suetonius gives us a 
series of detached characters, illustrated by an artful selection of facts 
and anecdotes, rather than a regular history. His work is chiefly 
valuable as descriptive of Roman manners. His genius has too much 
of the caustic humour of a satirist. Tacitus, with greater powers 
and deeper penetration, has drawn a picture of the times in stern 
and gloomy colours. (Sect. XXXVI, §11.) From neither of these his- 



ANCIENT HISTORY. 105 

torians will the ingenuous mind of youth receive moral improvement, 
or pleasing and benevolent impressions ; yet we cannot deny theii 
hign utility to the student of politics. 

16. If we except Herodian, who wrote with taste and judgment, il 
is doubtful whether any of the subsequent writers of the Roman 
history deserve a minute perusal. It is therefore advisable for the 
student to derive his knowledge of the history of the decline and 
fell of the Roman empire from modern authors, resorting to the 
original writers only for occasional information on detached points of 
importance. For this purpose, the General History by Dr. Howel 
is a work of great utility, being written entirely on the basis of the 
original historians, whose narrative he generally translates, referring 
constantly to his authorities in the margin. In this work the student 
will find a valuable mass of historical information. 

17. The reader having thus founded his knowledge of general his- 
tory on the original writers, will now peruse with great advantage 
the modern histories of ancient Greece and Rome by Mitford, Gillies, 
Gast, Hooke, Gibbon*, and Furgusson ; and will find himself qualified 
to form a just estimate of their merits, on which it is presumptuous 
to decide without such preparatory knowledge. 

18. The greatest magazine of historical information which has 
ever been collected into one body, is the English Universal History; 
a most useful work, from the amplitude of its matter, its general 
accuracy, and constant reference to the original authors. We may 
occasionally consult it with great advantage on points where deep 
research is necessary ; but we cannot read it with pleasure as a con- 
tinued work, from its tedious details and harshness of style, its abrupt 
transitions, and the injudicious arrangement of many of its parts. 

19. Geography and chronology have been justly termed the lights 
of history. We cannot peruse with advantage the historical annals 
oi any country without a competent knowledge of its geographical 
situation, and even of its particular topography. In reading the de 
scription of any event the mind necessarily forms a picture of the 
scene of action ; and it is surely better to draw the picture with truth 
from nature and reality, than falsely from imagination. Many actions 
and events are likewise intimately connected with the geography and 
local circumstances of a country, and are unintelligible without a 
knowledge of them. 

20. The use of chronological tables is very great, both for the 
purpose of uniting in one view the contemporary events in different 
nations, which often have an influence on one another, and for re- 
calling to the memory the order and series of events, and renewing 
the impressions of the objects of former study. It is extremely use- 
ful, after perusing the history of a nation in detail or that of a certain 
age or period, to run over briefly the principal occurrences in a table 
of chronology. The most perfect works of this kind are the chro- 
nological tables of Dr. Playfair, which unite history and biography; 
the tables of Dr. Blair ; or the older tables by Tallent.* 

END OF PART FIRST. 

* A list of the best translations of the principal books above mentioned. 
Herodotus, translated by Beloe, 4 vols. 8vo. 
Xenophon's Cycropedia by Cooper, 8vo. 
Xenophon's Anabasis, by Spelman, 2 vols. 8vo. 
, Xenophon's History of Greece, by Smith, 4to< 

14 



PART SECOND. 
MODERN HISTORY, 



SECTION I. 



1. The fall of the western empire of the Romans, and the final sub- 
jugation of Italy by the Lombards, is the sera from which we date the 
commencement of Modern History. 

The eastern empire of the Romans continued to exist for many 
ages after this period, still magnificent, though in a state of compar- 
ative weakness and degeneracy. Towards the end of the sixth cen- 
tury a new dominion arose in the east, which was destined to produce 
a wonderful change on a great portion of the globe. 

The Arabians, at this time a rude nation, living chiefly in indepen- 
dent tribes, who traced their descent from the patriarch Abraham, 
professed a mixed religion, compounded of Judaism and idolatry. 
Mecca, their holy city, rose to eminence from the donations of pil- 
grims to its temple, in which was deposited a black stone, an object 
of high veneration. Mahomet was born at Mecca, A. D. 571. Of 
mean descent, and no education, but of great natural talents, he sought 
to raise himself to celebrity, by feigning a divine mission to propagate 
a new religion for the salvation of mankind. He retired to the des- 
ert, and pretended to hold conferences with the angel Gabriel, who 
delivered to him, from time to time, portions of a sacred book or Co- 
ran, containing revelations of the will of the Supreme Being, and of 
the doctrines which he required his prophet to communicate to the 
world. 

2. This religion, while it adopted in part the morality of Christian- 
ity, retained many of the rites of Judaism, and some of the Arabian 
superstitions, as the pilgrimage to Mecca ; but owed to a certain spirit 

Plutarch, by Langhorne, 6 vols. 8vo., or 6 vols. 12mo. Wrangham'a 

edition. 
Thucydides, by Smith, 2 vols. 8vo. 
Dionysius Halicamassus, by Spelman, 4 vols. 4to 
Polybius, by Hampton, 4 vols. 8vo. 
Livy, by Baker, 6 vols. 8vo. 

Sallust, by Murphy, 8vo. ; by Stuart, 2 vols. 4to. ; by Rose, 8ro» 
Tacitus, by Murphy, 8 vols. 8vo. ; Irish edition, 4 vols. 8vo. 
Suetonius, by Thompson, 8vo. 
Diodorus Siculus, by Booth, folio. 
Arrian, by Rook, 2 vols. 8vo. 
Q. Curtius, by Digby, 2 vols. 12mo. 
Justin, by Turnbull, 12mo. 



MODERN H1STORV. 107 

of Asiatic voluptuousness its chief recommendation to its votaries. 
The Coran taught the belief of one God, whose will and power were 
constantly exerted towards the happiness of his creatures ; that the 
duty of man was to love his neighbours, assist the poor, protect the 
injured, to be humane to inferior animals, and to pray seven times a 
day. The pious mussulman was allowed to have four wives, and as 
many concubines as he chose ; and the pleasures of love were prom- 
ised as the supreme joys of paradise. To revive the impression of 
these laws, which God had engraven originally in the hearts of men, 
he had sent i om time to time his prophets upon earth, Abraham, 
Moses, Jesus Christ, and Mahomet ; the last the greatest, to whom 
all the world should owe its conversion to the true religion. By 
producing the Coran in detached parcels, Mahomet had it in his pow- 
er to solve all objections by new revelations. 

3. Dissensions and popular tumults between the believers and infi- 
dels caused the banishment of Mahomet from Mecca. His flight, 
called the hegyra, A. D. 622, is the aera of his glory. He retired to 
Medina, and was joined by the brave Omar. He propagated his doc- 
trines with great success, and marched with his followers in arms, and 
took the city of Mecca. In a few years he subdued all Arabia ; and 
then attacking Syria, took several of the Roman cities. In the midst 
of his victories he died at the age of sixty-one, A. D. 632. He had 
nominated Ali, his son-in-law, his successor; but Abubeker, his father- 
in-law, secured the succession by gaining the army to his interest 

4. Abubeker united and published the books of the Coran, and 
prosecuted the conquests of Mahomet. He defeated the army of He- 
raclius,took Jerusalem, and subjected all the country between Mount 
Libanus and the Mediterranean. On his death Omar was elected to 
the caliphate, and in one campaign deprived the Greek empire of 
Syria, Phoenicia., Mesopotamia, and Chaldaea. In the next campaign 
he subdued to tne mussulman dominion and religion, the whole em- 

Eire of Persia. His generals at the same time conquered Egypt, 
ibya, and Numidia. 

5. Otman, the successor of Omar, added to the dominion of the 
caliphs Bactriana, and part of Tartary, and ravaged Rhodes and the 
Greek islands. His successor was Ali, the son-in-law of Mahomet, a 
name to this day revered by the Mahometans. He transferred tne 
seat of the caliphate from Mecca to Couffa, whence it was afterwards 
removed to Bagdat. His reign was glorious, but only of five years' 
duration. In the space of half a century from the beginning of the 
conquests of Mahomet, the Saracens raised an empire more extensive 
than what remained of the Roman. Nineteen caliphs of the race of 
Omar {Ommicides) reigned irv succession, after which began the dy- 
nasty of the Abassidce, , descenaeu by the male line from Mahomet. 
Almanzor, second caliph of this race, removed the scat of empire to 
Bagdat, and introduced learning and the culture of the sciences, 
which his successors continued to promote with equal zeal and liber- 
ality. Haroun Alraschid, who flourished in the beginning of the ninth 
century, is celebrated as a second Augustus. The sciences chiefly 
cultivated by the Arabians were, medicine, geometry, and astronomy, 
They improved the oriental poetry, by adding regularity to its fancy 
and Iuxuriancy of imagery. 



108 MODERN HISTORY. 

SECTION II. 
MONARCHY OF THE FRANKS. 

1. The Franks were originally those tribes of Germans who inhab- 
ited the districts lying on the Lower Rhine and Weser, and who, in 
the time of Tacitus, passed under the names of Chauci, Cherusci. 
Catti, Sieambri, &c. They assumed or received the appellation of 
Franks, or freemen, from their temporary union to resist the domin- 
ion of the Romans. Legendary chronicles record a Pharamond and 
a Meroveus ; the latter the head of the first race of the kings of France, 
termed the Merovingian ; but the authentic history of the Franks 
commences only with his grandson Clovis, who began his reign in 
the year 481. In the twentieth year of his age Clovis achieved the 
conquest of Gaul, by the defeat of Syagrius the Roman governor, 
and marrying Clotilda, daughter of Chilperic king of Burgundy, soon 
added that province to his dominions, by dethroning his father-in-law. 
He was converted by Clotilda ; and the Franks, till then idolaters, be- 
came christians, after their sovereign's example. The Visigoths, 
professing Arianism, were masters at this time of Aquitaine, the coun- 
try between the Rhone and Loire. The intemperate zeal of Clovis 
prompted the extirpation of those heretics, who retreated across 
the Pyrenees into Spain ; and the provinces of Aquitaine became part 
of the kingdom of the Franks. They did not long retain it, for The- 
odoric the, great defeated Clovis in the battle of Aries, and added 
Aquitaine to his dominions. Clovis died A. D. 511. 

2. His four sons divided the monarchy, and were perpetually at 
war with one another. A series of weak and wicked princes succeed- 
ed, and Gaul for some ages was characterized under its Frank sover- 
eigns by more than ancient barbarism. On the death of Dagobert 11, 
A. D. 638, who left two infant sons, the government, during their mi- 
nority, fell into the hands of their chief officers, termed mayors of the 
palace ; and these ambitious men founded a new power, which for 
some generations held the Frank sovereigns in absolute subjection, 
and left them little more than the title of king. Austrasia and Neus- 
tria, the two great divisions of the Frank monarchy, were nominally 
governed by Thierry, but in reality by Pepin Heristel, mayor of the 
palace, who, restricting his sovereign to a small domain, ruled France 
for thirty years with great wisdom and good policy. His son, Charles 
Martel, succeeded to his power, and under a similar title governed for 
twenty-six years with equal ability and success. He was victorious 
over all hi* domestic foes. His arms kept in awe the surrounding 
nations, and he delivered France from the ravages of the Saracens, 
whom he entirely defeated between Tours and Poictiers, A. D. "32. 

3. Charles Martel bequeathed the government of France, as an un- 
disputed inheritance, to his two sons, Pepin Ie bref and Carloman, 
who governed, under the same title or mayor, one Austrasia, and the 
other Neustria and Burgundy. On the resignation of Carloman, Pepin 
succeeded to the sole administration. Ambitious of adding the title 
of king to the power which he already enjoyed, he proposed the 
question to pope Zachary, whether he or his sovereign Childeric 
was most worthy of the throne ? Zachary, who had his interest in 
view, decided that Pepin had a right to add the title of king to the 
office ; and Childeric was confined to a monastery for life. With 



MODERN HISTORY 109 

him ended the first or Merovingian race of the kings of France, 
A.D.751. 

4. Pepin recompensed the service done him by the pope, by turn 
ing his arms against the Lombards. He deprived them of the exar- 
chate* of Ravenna, and made a donation of that and other considerable 
territories to the holy see, which were the first, as is alleged, of its 
temporal possessions. Conscious of his defective title, it was the 
principal object of Pepin le bref to conciliate the affections of the 
people whom he governed. The legislative power among the Frank? 
was vested in the people assembled in their champs ae Mars. Under 
the Merovingian race the regal authority had sunk to nothing, while 
the power of the nobles had attained to an inordinate extent. Pepin 
found it his best policy to acknowledge and ratify those rights, which 
he could not without danger have invaded; and thus, under the char- 
acter of guardian of the powers of all the orders of the state, he exalt 
ed the regal office to its proper elevation, and founded it on the se- 
curest basis. On his death-bed he called a council of the grandees 
and obtained their consent to a division of hb kingdom between his 
two son&, Charles and Carloman. He died A. D. 768, at the age of 
fifty-three, after a reign of seventeen years from the death of Chil- 
deric III, and an administration of twenty-seven from the death of 
Charles MarteL 



SECTION 111. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE STATE OF FRANCE DURING THE 
MEROVINGIAN RACE OF ITS KINGS. ORIGIN OF THE 
FEUDAL SYSTEM. 

1. The manners of the Franks were similar to those of the other 
Germanic nations described by Tacitus. Though under the command 
of a chief or king, their government was extremely democratical, and 
they acknowledged no other than a military subordination. The legis- 
lative authority resided in the general assembly, or champs de Mars* 
held annually on the 1st day of March, a council in which the king 
had but a single suffrage, equally with the meanest soldier. But, 
when in arms against the enemy, his power was absolute in enforcing 
military discipline. 

2. After the establishment of the Franks in Gaul some changes took 
place from their new situation. They reduced the Gauls to absolute 
subjection ; yet they left many in possession of their lands, because the 
new country was too large for ite conquerors. They left them like- 
wise the use of their existing laws, which were those of the Roman 
code, while they themselves were governed by the salique and npua- 
rian laws, ancient institutions in observance among the Franks before 
they left their original seats in Germany. Hence arose that extraor- 
dinary diversity of local laws and usages in the kingdom of France, 
which continued down to modern times, and gave occasion to number- 
less inconveniences. 

3. The ancient Germans had the highest veneration for the priests 
or druids. It was natural that the Franks, after their conversion to 
Christianity, should have the same reverence for their bishops, to 
whom accordingly they allowed the first rank in the national as- 
sembly. These bishops were generally chosen from among the na- 
tive Gauls ; for, having adopted from this nation their new religion- 
it was natural that their priests should be chosen from the same peo- 

K 



t MODERN HISTORY. 

pie. The influence of the clergy contributed much to ameliorate 
the condition of the conquered Gauls, and to humanize their conquer 
ors ; and in a short space of time the two nations were thoroughly in- 
corporated. 

4. At this period a new system of policy is visible among this unit- 
ed people, which by degrees extended itself over most of the nations' 
of Europe. This is the feudal system. By this expression is properly 
meant that tenure or condition on which the proprietors of land held 
their possessions, viz. , an obligation to perform military service, 
whenever required by the chief or overlord to whom they owed al- 
legiance. 

Many modern writers attribute the origin of this institution or poli- 
cy to the kings of the Franks, who, after the conquest of Gaul, are 
supposed to have divided the lands among their followers, on this 
condition of military service. But this notion is attended with insur- 
mountable difficulties. For, in the first place, it proceeds on this false 
supposition, that the conquered lands belonged in property to the king, 
and that he had the right of bestowing them in gifts, or dividing them 
among his followers ; whereas it is a certain fact, that among the 
Franks the partition of conquered lands was made by lot, as was the 
division even of the spoil or booty taken in battle; and that the king's 
share, though doubtless a larger portion than that of his captains, was 
likewise assigned him by lot. Secondly, if we should suppose the king 
to have made those gifts to his captains out of his own domain, the 
creation of a very few beneficia {benefices) would have rendered him 
a poorer man than his subjects. We must therefore have recourse 
to another supposition for the origin of the fiefs ; and we shall find 
that it is to be traced to a source much more remote than the con 
quest of Gaul by the Franks. 

5. Among all barbarous nations, with whom war is the chief occu- 
pation, we remark a strict subordination of the members of a tribe to 
♦Heir chief or leader. It was observed by Caesar as peculiarly strong 
among the Gaulish nations, and as subsisting not only between the 
soldiers and their commander, but between the inferior towns or vil- 
lages, and the canton or province to which they belonged. In peace 
every man cultivated his land, free of all taxation, and subject to no 
other burden but that of military service, when required by his chief. 
When the province was at war, each village, though taxed to furnish 
only a certain number of soldiers, was bound to send, on the day ap- 
pointed for a general muster, all its males capable of bearing arms; 
and from these its rated number was selected by the chief of the prov- 
ince. This clientela {vassalage) subsisted among the Franks as well 
as among the Gauls. It subsisted among the Romans, who, to check 
the inroads of the barbarian nations, and to secure their distant con- 
quests, were obliged to maintain fixed garrisons on their frontiers. 
To each officer in those garrisons it was customary to assign a por- 
tion of land as the pledge and pay of his service. These gifts were 
termed beneficia^ and their proprietors beneficiarii. Plin. Ep. lib. 10, 
ep. 32. The beneficia were at first granted only for life. Alexander 
Severus allowed them to descend to heirs, on the like condition of 
military service. 

6. When Gaul was overrun by the Franks, a great part of the lands 
was possessed on this tenure by the Roman soldiery, as the rest was 
by the native Gauls. The conquerors, accustomed to the same poli- 
cy -*viil naturally adopt it in the partition of their new conquests ; 
&&& &w% M receiving his share, becoming bound to military service, 



MODERN HISTORY. Ill 

as a condition necessarily annexed to territorial property. With 
respect to those Gauls who retained their possessions, no other 
change was necessary but to exact the same obligation of military 
vassalage to their new conquerors, which they had rendered to their 
former masters the emperors, and, before the Roman conquest, to 
their native chiefs. Thus no other change took place but that of 
the overlord. The system was the same which had prevailed for 
ages. 

7. But these beneficia, or fiefs, were personal grants, revocable by 
the sovereign or overlord, and reverting to him on the death of the 
vassal. The weakness 01 the Frank kings of the Merovingian race 
emboldened the possessors of fiefs to aspire at independence and 
security of property. In a convention held at Andeli in 587, to treat 
of peace between Gontran and Childebert II., the nobles obliged 
these princes to renounce the right of revoking their benefices, 
which nenceforward passed by inheritance to their eldest male issue. 

8. It was a necessary consequence of a fief becoming perpetual and 
hereditary, that it should be capable of subinfeudation ; and that the 
vassal himself, holding his land of the sovereign by the tenure of 
military service, should be enabled to create a train of inferior vas- 
sals, by giving to them portions of his estate to be held on the same 
condition, of following his standard in battle, rendering him homage 
as their lord, and paying, as the symbol of their subjection, a small 
annual present, either of money or the fruits of their lands. Thus, 
in a little time, the whole territory in the feudal kingdoms was either 
held immediately and in capite of the sovereign himself, or mediately 
by inferior vassals of the tenants in capite. 

9. It was natural in those disorderly times, when the authority of 
government and the obligation of general laws were extremely weak, 
that the superior or overlord should acquire a civil and criminal 
jurisdiction over his vassals. The comites, to whom, as the chief 
magistrates of police, the administration of justice belonged of right, 
paid little attention to the duties of their office, and shamefully abused 
their powers. The inferior classes naturally chose, instead of seek- 
ing justice through this corrupted channel, to submit their lawsuits to 
the arbitration of their overlord ; and this jurisdiction, conferred at first 
by the acquiescence of parties, came at length to be regarded as 
founded on strict right. Hence arose a perpetual contest of jurisdic- 
tion between the greater barons in their own territories and the es- 
tablished judicatories ; a natural cause of that extreme anarchy and 
disorder which prevailed in France during the greater part of the 
Merovingian period, and sunk the regal authority to the lowest pitch 
of abasement. In a government of which every part was at variance 
with the rest, it was not surprising that a new power should arise, 
which, in able hands, should be capable of bringing the whole under 
subjection. 

10. The mayor of the palace, or first officer of the household, 
gradually usurped, under a series of weak princes, the whole 
powers of the sovereign. This office, from a personal dignity, be- 
came hereditary in the family of Pepin Heristel. His grandson, 
Pepin le bref, removed from the throne those phantoms of the Me- 
rovingian race, assumed the title of king, by the authority of a pa- 
pal decree, and reigned for seventeen years with dignity and success. 
He was the founder of the second race of the French monarchs 
known by the name of the Carlovingian. See Rett's Elements of 
General Knowledge, vol. I. 



112 MODERN HISTORY. 

SECTION IV. 
CHARLEMAGNE. THE NEW EMPIRE OF THE WEST. 

1. Pepin le brefi with the consent of his nobles, divided, on his 
death-bed, the kingdom of France between his sons* Charles and 
Carloman, A. D. 768. The latter died a few years after his father, 
and Charles succeeded to the undivided sovereignty. In the course 
of a reign of forty-five years Charlemagne (for so he was de- 
servedly styledj) extended the limits of his empire beyond the Dan- 
ube ; subdued Dacia, Dalmatia, and Istria ; conquered and subjected 
all the barbarous tribes to the banks of the Vistula ; made himself mas- 
ter of a great portion of Italy ; and successfully encountered the arms 
of the Saracens, the Huns, the Bulgarians, and the Saxons. His 
war with the Saxons was of thirty years' duration, and their final 
conquest was not achieved without an inhuman waste of blood. At 
tiie request of the pope, and to discharge the obligation of his father 
Pepin to the holy see, Charlemagne dispossessed Desiderius king of 
the Lombards of all his dominions, though allied to him by marriage ; 
and put a final period to the Lombard dominion in Italy, A. D. 774. 

2. He made his entry into Rome at the festival of Easter, was 
there crowned king of France and of the Lombards, and was, by 
pope Adrian I, invested with the right of ratifying the election of 
the popes. Irene, empress of the east, sought to ally herself with 
Charlemagne, by the marriage of her son Constantine to his daugh- 
ter ; but her subsequent inhuman conduct, in putting Constantine to 
death, gave ground to suspect the sincerity of her desire for that 
alliance. 

3. In the last visit of Charlemagne to Italy he was consecrated 
emperor of the west by the hands of pope Leo III. It is probable 
that if he had chosen Rome for his residence and seat of government, 
and at his death had transmitted to his successor an undivided domin- 
ion, the great but fallen empire of the west might have once more 
been restored to lustre and respect. But Charlemagne had no fixed 
capital, and divided, even in his lifetime, his dominions among his 
children, A. D. 806. 

4. The economy of government and the domestic administration 
of Charlemagne merit attention. Pepin le href had introduced the 
system of annual assemblies or parliaments, held at first in March, 
and afterwards in May, where the chief estates of clergy and nobles 
were called to deliberate on the public affairs and the wants of the 
people. Charlemagne apointed these assemblies to be held twice in 
the year, in spring and in autumn. In the latter assembly all affairs 
were prepared and digested ; in the former was transacted the busi- 
ness of legislation; and of this assembly he made the people a party, 
by admitting from each province or district twelve deputies or rep- 
resentatives. The assembly now consisted of three estates, each of 
which formed a separate chamber, and discussed apart the concerns 
of its own order. They afterwards united to communicate their 
resolutions, or to deliberate on their common interests. The sove- 
reign was never present, unless when called to ratify the decrees of 
the assembly. 

5. Charlemagne divided the empire into provinces, and the prov- 
inces into districts, each comprehending a certain number of coun- 



MODERN HISTORY. 113 

ties. The districts were governed by royal envoys, chosen from the 
clergy and nobles, and bound to an exact visitation of their territories 
everv three months. These envoys held annual conventions, at 
which were present the higher clergy and barons, to discuss the 
affairs of the district, examine the conduct of its magistrates, and 
redress the grievances of individuals. At the general assembly, or 
champ de Mzi, the royal envoys made their report to the sovereign 
and states; and thus the public attention was constantly directed to 
nil the concerns of the empire. 

6. The private character of Charlemagne was most amiable and 
despectable. His secretary, Eginhart, has painted his domestic life 
in beautiful and simple colours. The economy of his family is char- 
acteristic of an age of great simplicity ; for his daughters were as- 
siduously employed in spinning and housewifery, and the sons were 
trained by their father in the practice of all manly exercises. This 
illustrious man died A. D. 814, in the seventy-second year of his age. 
Contemporary with him was Haroun Alraschid, caliph of the Sara- 
cens, equally celebrated for his conquests, excellent policy, and the 
wisdom and humanity of his government. 

7. Of all the lawful sons of Charlemagne, Lewis the debonnaire 
was the only one who survived him, and who therefore succeeded 
without dispute to all the imperial dominions, except Italy, which 
the emperor had settled on Bernard, his grandson by Pepin, his 
second son, 



SECTION V. 

MANNERS, GOVERNMENT, AND CUSTOMS OF THE AGE OF 
CHARLEMAGNE. 

1. In establishing the provincial conventions under the royal 
envoys, Charlemagne did not entirely abolish the authority of the 
ancient chief magistrates, the dukes and counts. They continued 
to command the troops of the province, and to make the levies in 
stated numbers from each district. Cavalry were not numerous in 
the imperial armies, twelve farms being taxed to furnish only one 
horseman with his armour and accoutrements. The province sup- 
plied six months' provisions to its complement of men, and the king 
maintained them during the rest of the campaign. 

2. The engines for the attack and defence of towns were, as in 
former times, the ram, the balista, catapulta, testudo, &c. Charle- 
magne had his ships of war stationed in the mouths of all the larger 
rivers. He bestowed great attention on commerce. The merchants 
of Italy and the south of France traded to the Levant, and exchanged 
the commodities of Europe and Asia. Veaice and Genoa were 
rising into commercial opulence; and the manufactures of wool, glass, 
and iron, were successfully cultivated in many of the principal towns 
in the south of Europe 

3. The value of money was nearly the same as in the Roman 
empire in the age of Constantine the great. The numerary livre, 
in the age of Charlemagne, was supposed to be a pound of silver, in 
value about 3k sterling of English money. At present the livre is 
worth 10 l-2d. English. Hence we ought to be cautious in forming 
our estimate of ancient money from its name. From the want of 

& 



114 MODERN HISTORY. 

this caution have arisen the most erroneous ideas of the commerce, 
riches, and strength of the ancient kingdoms. 

4. The capituktria {statute-books) of Charlemagne, compiled into a 
body A. D. 827, were recovered from oblivion in 1531 and 1545. 
They present many circumstances illustrative of the manners of the 
times. Unless in great cities there were no inns : the laws obliged 
every man to give accommodation to travellers. The chief towns 
were built of wood. The state of the mechanic arts was very low 
in Europe. The Saracens had made more progress in them. Paint- 
ing and sculpture were only preserved from absolute extinction by 
the existing remains of ancient art. Charlemagne appears to have 
been anxious for the improvement of music ; and the Italians are said 
to have instructed his French performers in the art of playing on the 
organ. Architecture was studied and successfully cultivated in that 
style termed the Gothic, which admits of great beauty, elegance, 
and magnificence. The composition of Mosaic appears to have been 
an invention of those, ages. 

5. The knowledge of ietters was extremely low, and confined to a 
few of the ecclesiastics., Charlemagne gave the utmost encourage- 
ment to literature and the sciences, inviting into his dominions of 
France, men eminent in those departments from Italy, and from the 
Britannic isles, which, in those dark ages, preserved more of the 
light of learning than any of the western kingdoms. " JVeque enim 
suenda laus Britarmice, Scotia, et Hibemice, qiw studio liberalium artium 
eo tempore antecellebant reliquis occidentalisms regnis ; et cura prcesertim 
monachorum, qui literarum gloriam, alibi aid languentem aut depressam^ 
in lis regionibus impigre suscitabant atque tuebantwrP Murat. Antiq. 
Ital. Diss. 43. " I must not omit the praise due to England, Scotland^ 
and Ireland, which at that time excelled the other western kingdoms in the 
itudy of the liberal arts ; and especially to the monks, by whose care and 
diligence the honour (if literature, which in other countries was either 
languishing or depressed, was revived and protected in Hiese. n The 
scarcity of books in those times, and the nature of their subjects, 
as legends, lives of the saints, &c, evince the narrow diffusion of 
literature. 

6. The pecuniary fines for homicide, the ordeal or judgment of 
God, and judicial combat, were striking peculiarities in the laws and 
manners of the northern nations, and particularly of the Franks. By 
this warlike, barbarous people, revenge was esteemed honourable and 
meritorious. The high-spirited warrior chastised or vindicated with 
his own hand the injuries which he had received or inflicted. The 
magistrate interfered, not to punish, but to reconcile, and was satisfied 
if he could persuade the aggressor to pay, and the injured party to 
accept, the moderate fine which was imposed as the price of blood, 
and of which the measure was estimated according to the rank, the 
sex, and the country of the person slain. But increasing civilization 
abolished those barbarous distinctions. We have remarked the equal 
severity of the laws of the Visigoths, in the crimes of murder and 
robbery; and even among the Franks, in the age of Charlemagne, 
deliberate murder was punished with death. 

7. By their ancient laws, a party accused of any crime was al- 
lowed to produce compurgators, or a certain number of witnesses, 
according to the measure of the offence ; and if these declared 
upon oath their belief of his innocence, it was held a sufficient excur- 
pation. Seventy-two compurgators were required to acquit a mur- 
derer or an incendiary. The flagrant perjuries occasioned by this 



MODERN HISTORY. us 

absurd practice probably gave rise to the trial by ordeal, which was 
termed, as it was belie vea to be, the judgment of God. The crimi- 
nal was ordered, at the option of the judge, to prove his innocence 
or guilt, by the ordeal of cold water, of boiling water, or red hot 
iron. He was tied hand and foot, and thrown into a pool, to sink or 
swim ; he was made to fetch a ring from the bottom of a vessel of 
boiling water, or to walk barefooted over burning ploughshares. His- 
tory records examples of those wonderful experiments having been 
made without injury or pain. 

8. Another peculiarity of the laws and manners of the northern 
nations was judicial combat. Both in civil suits and in the trial of 
crimes, the party destitute of legal proofs might challenge his antag- 
onist to mortal combat, and rest the cause upon its issue. This san- 
guinary and most iniquitous custom, which may be traced to this day 
in the practice of duelling, had the authority of law in the court of 
the constable and marshal, even in the last century, in France and 
England. 



SECTION VI. 

RETROSPECTIVE VIEW OF THE AFFAIRS OF THE CHURCH 
BEFORE THE AGE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

1. The Arian and Pelagian heresies divided the christian church 
for many ages. In the fourth centurv, Arius, a presbyter of Alexan- 
dria, maintained the separate and interior nature of the second per- 
son of the trinity, regarding Christ as the noblest of created beings, 
through whose agency the Creator had formed the universe. His 
doctrine was condemned in the council of Nice, held by Constantine 
A. 1). 325, who afterwards became a convert to it. For many cen- 
turies it had an extensive influence, and produced the sects of the 
Eunomians, Semi-Arians, Eusebians, &c. 

2. In the beginning of the fifth century Pelagius and Caslestius, 
the former a native of Britain, the latter of Ireland, denied the doc- 
trine of original sin, and the necessity of divine grace to enlighten 
the understanding, and purify the heart ; and maintained the suffi- 
ciency of man's natural powers for the attainment of the highest 
degrees of piety and virtue. These tenets were ably combated by 
St. Augustine, and condemned by an ecclesiastical council, but have 
ever continued to find many supporters. 

3. The most obstinate source of controversy in those ages was the 
worship of images ; a practice which was at first opposed by the 
clergy, but was afterwards, from interested motives, countenanced 
and vindicated by them. It was, however, long a subject of division in 
the church. The emperor Leo the Isaurian, A. D. 727, attempted 
to suppress this idolatry, by the destruction of every statute and pic- 
ture found in the churches, and by punishment of their worshippers: 
but this intemperate zeal rather increased than repressed the super- 
stition. His son Constantine Copronymus, with wiser policy, pro- 
cured its condemnation by the church. 

4. From the doctrines of the Platonic and Stoic philosophy, 
which recommended the purification of the soul, by redeeming it 
from its subjection to the senses, arose the system of penances, mor- 
tification, religious sequestration, and monachism. After Constantine 
had put an end to the persecution of the christians, many conceived 



116 MODERN HISTORY. 

it a duty to procure for themselves voluntary grievances and suffer- 
ings. They retired into caves and hermitages, and there practised 
the most rigorous mortifications of the flesh, by fasting, scourging, 
vigils, &c. This phrensy first showed itself in Egypt in the fourth 
century, whence it spread over all the east, a great part of Africa, 
and within the limits of the bishopric of Rome. In the time of The- 
odosius these devotees began to form communities or ccenobia, each 
associate binding himself by oath to observe the rules of his order. 
St. Benedict introduced monachism into Italy, under the reign of 
Totila ; and his order, the Benedictine, soon became extremely nu- 
merous and opulent. Many rich donations were made by the devout 
and charitable, who believed that they profited by the prayers of the 
monks. Benedict sent colonies into Sicily and France, whence they 
soon spread over all Europe. 

5. In the east, the monachi solitarii (solitary monks) were first incor- 
porated into ccsnobia by St. Basil, bishop of Csesarc^i, in the middle of 
the fourth century ; and some time before that period the first monas- 
teries for women were founded in Egypt by the sister of St. Pacomo. 
From these, in the following age, sprung a variety of orders, under 
different rules. The rule of the canons regular was framed after the 
model of the apostolic life. To chastity, obedience, and poverty, the 
mendicants added the obligation of begging alms. The military reli- 
gious orders were unknown till the age of the holy wars. (Sect. XVII, 
§ 3.) The monastic fraternities owed their reputation chiefly to the 
little literary knowledge which, in those ages of ignorance, they ex 
clusively possessed. (For the origin of monachism, see Varieties of 
Lite rat- ire.) 

6. In the fifth century arose a set of fanatics termed stylites, or pil- 
lar-saints, who passed their lives on the tops of pillars of various height. 
Simeon of Syria lived thirty-seven years, and died on a pillar sixty 
feet high. This phrensy prevailed in the east for many centuries. 
(For a curious account of the fanaticism of the Hindoos, see Tennant's 
Indian Recreations.) 

7. Auricular confession, which had been abolished in the east in 
the fourth century, began to be in use in the west in the age of Char- 
lemagne, and has ever since prevailed in the Romish church. The 
canonization of saints was, for near twelve centuries, practised by ev- 
ery bishop. Pope Alexander III, one of the most vicious of men, 
first claimed and assumed this right, as the exclusive privilege of the 
successor of St. Peter. 

8. The conquests of Charlemagne spread Christianity in the north 
of Europe ; but all beyond the limits of his conquests was idolatrous. 
Britain and Ireland had received the light of Christianity at an earlier 
period ; but it was afterwards extinguished, and again revived under 
the Saxon heptarchy. 



SECTION VII. 

EMPIRE OF THE WEST UNDER THE SUCCESSORS OF CHAR- 
LEMAGNE. 

1. The empire of Charlemagne, raised and supported solely by his 
abilities, fell to pieces under his weak posterity. Lewis (le debonnaire), 
the only survivor of his lawful sons, was consecrated emperor and 
king of the Franks at Aix la Chapelle, A. D. 816. Among the first 



MODERN HISTORY. 117 

acts of his reign was the partition of his dominions among his children. 
To Pepin, his second son, he gave Aquitaine,a third part of the south 
of France ; to Lewis, the youngest, Bavaria ; and he associated his 
eldest son Lotharius with himself in the government of the rest. The 
three princes quarrelled among themselves, agreeing in nothing but 
in hostility against their father. They made open war against him, 
supported by pope Gregory IV. The pretence was, that the emper- 
or having a younger son, Charles, born after this partition of his 
states^ wanted to give him likewise a share, which could not be done 
but at the expense of his elder brothers. Lewis was compelled to 
surrender himself a prisoner to his rebellious sons. They confined 
him for a year to a monastery, till, on a new quarrel between Lewis 
the younger and Pepin, Lotharius once more restored his father to 
the throne : but his spirits were broken, his health decayed, and he 
finished, soon after, an inglorious and turbulent reign, A. D. 840. 

2. The dissensions of the brothers still continued. Lotharius, now 
emperor, and Pepin his brother's son, having taken up arms against 
the two other sons of Lewis le debonnaire^ Lewis of Bavaria and 
Charles the bald, were defeated by them in the battle of Fontenai, 
where 100,000 are said to have fallen in the field. The church in 
those times was a prime organ of the civil policy. A council of bish- 
ops immediately assembled, and solemnly deposed Lotharius. At the 
same time they assumed an equal authority over his conquerors, 
whom they permitted to reign, on the express condition of submissive 
obedience to the supreme spiritual authority. Yet Lotharius, though 
excommunicated and deposed, found means to accommodate matters 
with his brothers, who agreed to a new partition of the empire. By 
the treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, the western part of France, termed 
Neustria and Aqjiitaine, was assigned to Charles the bald ; Lotharios, 
with the title of emperor, had the nominal sovereignty of Italy, and 
the real territory of Lorraine, Franche Compte, Provence, and the 
Lyonnois ; the share of Lewis was the kingdom of Germany. 

3. Thus was Germany finally separated from the empire of the 
Franks. On the death of Lotharius, Charles the bald assumed the 
empire, or, as is said, purchased it from pope John VIII, on the con- 
dition of holding it as a vassal to the holy see. This prince, after a 
weak and inglorious reign, died by poison, A. D. 877. He was the 
first of the French monarchs who made dignities and titles hereditary. 
Under the distracted reigns of the Carlovingian kings, the nobles at- 
tained great power, and commanded a formidable vassalage. Thev 
strengthened themselves in their castles and fortresses, and bid defi- 
ance to the arm of government, while the country was ravaged and 
desolated by their feuds. 

4. In the reign of Charles the bald, France was plundered by the 
Normans, a new race of Goths from Scandinavia, who had begun 
their depredations even in the time of Charlemagne, and were only 
checked in their progress by the terror of his arms. A. D. 843 they 
sailed up the Seine, and plundered Rouen ; while another fleet enter- 
ed the Loire, and laid waste the country and its vicinity, carrying, 
together with its spoils, men, women, and children, into captivity. 
In the following year they attacked the coasts of England, France 
and Spain, but were repelled from the last by the good conduct and 
courage of its Mahometan rulers. In 845 they entered the Elbe, 
plundered Hamburgh, and penetrated far into Germany. Eric, king 
of Denmark, who commanded these Normans, sent once more a fleet 
into the Seine, which advanced to Paris. Its inhabitants fled, and the 



118 MODERN HISTORY. 

city was burnt. Another fleet, with little resistance, pillaged Bour- 
deaux. To avert the arms of these ravagers, Charles the bald bribed 
them with money, and his successor, Charles the gross, yielded them 
a part of his Flemish dominions. These were only incentives to 
fresh depredation. Paris was attacked a second time, but gallantly 
defended by count Odo or Eudes, and the venerable bishop Goslin. 
A truce was a second time concluded ; but the barbarians only chang- 
ed the scene of their attack : they besieged Sens, and plundered 
Burgundy. An assembly of the states held at Mentz deposed the 
unworthy Charles, and conferred the crown on the more deserving 
Eudes : who, during a reign of ten years, bravely withstood the Nor- 
mans. A great part of the states of France, however, refused his 
title to the crown, and gave their allegiance to Charles surnamed the 
simple. 

5. Rollo, the Norman, in 912, compelled the king of France to 
yield him a large portion of the territory of Neustria, and to give 
nim his daughter in marriage. The new kingdom was now called 
Normandy, of which Rouen was the capital. 



SECTION VIII. 

EMPIRE OF THE EAST DURING THE EIGHTH AND NINTH 
CENTURIES. 

1. While the new empire of the west was thus rapidly tending 
to dissolution, the empire of Constantinople still retained a vestige ol 
its ancient grandeur. It had lost its African and Syrian dependencies, 
and was plundered by the Saracens on the eastern frontier, and rav- 
aged on the north and west by the Abari and Bulgarians. The capi- 
tal, though splendid and refined, was a constant scene of rebellions 
and conspiracies ; and the imperial family itself exhibited a series of 
the most horrid crimes and atrocities. One emperor was put to 
death in revenge of murder and incest ; another was poisoned by his 
queen ; a third was assassinated in the bath by his own domestics ; a 
fourth tore out the eyes of his brother ; the empress Irene, respecta- 
ble for her talents, was infamous for the murder of her only son. 
Of such complexion was that series of princes who swayed the scep- 
tre of the east nearly 200 years. 

2. In the latter part of this period a most violent controversy was 
maintained respecting the worship of images, which were alternately 
destroyed and replaced according to the humour of the sovereign. 
The female sex was their most zealous supporter. This was not the 
only subject of division in the christian church ; the doctrines of Man- 
iches were then extremely prevalent, and the sword was frequent- 
ly employed to support and propagate their tenets. 

3. The misfortunes of the empire were increased by an invasion 
of the Russians from the Palus Mceotis and Euxine. In the reign of 
Leo, named the philosopher, the Turks, a new race of barbarians, of 
Scythian or Tartarian breed, began to make effectual inroads on its 
territories. About the same time its domestic calamities were aggra- 
vated by the separation of the Greek from the Latin church, of 
which we shall treat under the following section. 



MODERN HISTORY. 119 

SECTION IX. 

STATE OF THE CHURCH IN THE EIGHTH AND NINTH 
CENTURIES. 

1. The popes had begun to acquire a temporal authority under 
Pepin le href and Charlemagne, from the donations of territory 
made by those princes, and they were now gradually extending a 
spriritual jurisdiction over all the christian kingdoms. Nicholas 1. 
proclaimed to the whole world his paramount judgment in appeal 
from the sentences of all spiritual judicatories ; his power of as- 
sembling councils of the church, and of regulating it by the canons 
of those councils ; the right of exercising his authority by legates in 
all the kingdoms of Europe, and the control of the pope over all 
princes and governors Literary imposture gave its support to these 
pretences. Certain spurious epistles were written in the name of 
Isidorus, with the design of proving the justice of the claims of the 
pope , and the forgery of those epistles was not completely exposed 
till the sixteenth century. Among the prerogatives of the popes was 
the regulation of the marriages of all the crowned heads, by the 
extreme extension of the prohibitions of the canon law, with which 
they alone had the power of dispensing. 

2. One extraordinary event (if true) afforded, in the ninth cen- 
tury, a ludicrous interruption to the boasted succession of regular 
bishops from the days of St. Peter, the election of a female pope ? 
who is said to have ably governed the church for three years, till 
detected by the birth of a child. Till the reformation by Luthei 
this event was not regarded by the catholics as incredible, nor dis- 
graceful to the church : since that time its truth or falsehood has 
been the subject of keen controversy between the protestants and 
catholics ; and the evidence for its falsehood seems to preponderate. 

3. The church was thus gradually extending its influence, and 
its head arrogating the control over sovereign princes, who, by a 
singular interchange of character, seem, in those ages, to have 
fixed their chief attention on spiritual concerns. Kings, dukes, and 
counts, neglecting their temporal duties, shut themselves up in clois- 
ters, and spent their lives in prayers and penances. Ecclesiastics 
were employed in all the departments of secular government; and 
they alone conducted all public measures and state negotiations, 
which of course they directed to the great objects of advancing the 
interests of the church, and establishing the paramount authority of 
the holy see. 

4. At this period, however, when the popedom seemed to have 
attained its highest ascendancy, it suffered a severe wound in that 
remarkable schism which separated the patriarchates of Rome and 
Constantinople, or the Greek and Latin churches. The Roman pon- 
tiff had hitherto claimed the right of nominating the patriarch of 
Constantinople. The emperor Michael III. denied this right, and de- 
posing the pope's patriarch, Ignatius, appointed the celebrated Photius 
in his stead. Pope Nicholas 1, resented this affront with a high spirit, 
and deposed and excommunicated Photius, A. D. 863, who, in his 
turn, pronounced a similar sentence against the pope. The church 
was divided, each patriarch being supported by many bishops and 
their dependent clergy. The Greek and Latin bishops had long 



120 MODERN HISTORY. 

differed in many points of practice and discipline, as the celibacy of 
the clergy, the shaving of their beards, &,c. ; but in reality the prime 
source of division was the ambition of the rival pontiffs, and the jeal- 
ousy of the Greek emperors, unwilling to admit the control of 
Rome, and obstinately asserting every prerogative which they con- 
ceived to be annexed to the capital of the Roman empire. As nen 
ther party would yield in its pretensions, the division of the Greek 
and Latin churches became from this time permanent. 

5. Amid those ambitious contests for ecclesiastical power and pre- 
eminence, the christian religion itself was disgraced, both by the 
practice and by the principles of its teachers. Worldly ambition, 
gross voluptuousness, and grosser ignorance, characterized all ranks 
of the clergy ; and the open sale of benefices placed them often in 
the hands of the basest and most profligate of men. Yet the charac- 
ter of Photius forms an illustrious exception. Though bred a states- 
man and a soldier, and in both these respects of great reputation, he 
attained, by his singular abilities, learning, and worth, the highest 
dignity of the church. His Bibliotheca is a monument of the most 
various knowledge, erudition, and critical judgment. 



SECTION X. 

OF THE SARACENS IN THE EIGHTH AND NINTH CENTURIES. 

1. In the beginning of the eighth century the Saracens subverted 
the monarchy of the Visigoths in Spain, and easily overran the coun- 
try. They had lately founded in Africa the empire of Morocco, 
which wasgoverned by Muza, viceroy of the caliph Valid Almanzor, 
Muza sent his general Tariph into Spain, who, in one memorable 
battle, fought A. D. 713, stripped the Gothic king Rodrigo of his 
crown and life. The conquerors, satisfied with the sovereignty of 
the country, left the vanquished Goths in possession of their proper- 
ty, laws, and religion. Abdallah the Moor married the widow of 
Kodrigo, and the two nations formed a perfect union. One small 
part of the rocky country of Asturia alone adhered to its christian 
prince, Pelagius, who maintained his little sovereignty, and transmit- 
ted it inviolate to his successors. 

2. The Moors pushed their conquests beyond the Pyrenees ; but 
division arising among their emirs, and civil wars ensuing, Lewis 
le debonnaire took advantage of the turbulent state of the country, 
and invaded and seized Barcelona. The Moorish sovereignty in the 
north of Spain was weakened by throwing off its dependence on 
the caliphs ; and in this juncture the christian sovereignty of the 
Asturias, under Alphonso the chaste, began to make vigorous en- 
croachments on the territory of the Moors. Navarre and Arragon, 
roused by this example, chose each a christian king, and boldly as- 
serted their liberty and independence. 

3. While the Moors of Spain were thus losing ground in the north, 
ihey were highly flourishing in the southern parts of the kingdom. 
Abdalrahman, the last heir of the family of the Ommiades (the 
Acassidae now enjoying the caliphate), was recognized as the true 
representative of the ancient line by the southern Moors. He fixed 
the seat of his government at Cordova, which, for two centuries from 
that time, was the capital of a splendid monarchy. This period, 
from the middle of the eighth to the middle of the tenth century, 



MODERN HISTORY. 121 

is the most brilliant sera of Arabian magnificence. Whilst Haroun 
\lraschid made Bagdat illustrious by the splendour of the arts and 
sciences, the Moors of Cordova vied with their brethern of Asia 
in the same honourable pursuits, and were undoubtedly at this period 
the most enlightened of the states of Europe. Under a series of 
able princes they gained the highest reputation, both in arts and 
arms, of all the nations of the west. 

4. The Saracens were at this time extending their conquests in 
almost every quarter of the world. The Mahometan religion was 
professed over a great part of India, and all along me eastern and 
Mediterranean coast of Africa. The African Saracens invaded 
Sicily, and projected the conquest of Italy. They actually laid 
siege to Rome, which was nobly defended by pope Leo IV. They 
were repulsed, their ships were dispersed by a storm, and their army 
was cut to pieces, A. D. 848. 

5. The Saracens might have raised an immense empire, if they 
had acknowledged only one head ; but their states were always dis- 
united. Egypt, Morocco, Spain, and India, had all their separate 
sovereigns, who continued to respect the caliph of Bagdat as the 
successor of the prophet, but acknowledged no temporal subjection 
to his government 



SECTION XI. 

EMPIRE OF THE WEST AND ITALY IN THE TENTH AND 
ELEVENTH CENTURIES. 

1. The empire founded by Charlemagne now subsisted only in 
name. Arnold, a bastard son of Carloman, possessed Germany. 
Italy was divided between Guy duke of Spoletto and Berengarius 
duke of Priuli, who had received these duchies from Charles the 
bald. France, though claimed oy Arnold, was governed by Eudes 
Thus the empire in realitv consisted only of a part of Germany, 
while France, Spain, Italy, Burgundy, and the countries between the 
Maes and Rhine, were all subject to different powers. The emper- 
ors were at this time elected by the bishops and grandees, all oi 
whom claimed a voice. In this manner Lewis the son of Arnold, 
the last of the blood of Charlemagne, was chosen emperor after the 
death of his father. On his demise Otho duke of Saxony, by his 
credit with his brother grandees, conferred the empire on Conrad 
duke of Franconia, at whose death Henry surnamed the fowler, son 
of the same duke Otho, was elected emperor, A. D. 918. 

2. Henry I. (the fowler), a prince of great abilities, introduced 
order and good government into the empire. He united the gran- 
dees, and curbed their usurpations ; built, embellished, and fortified 
the cities ; and enforced with great rigour the execution of the laws 
in the repression of all enormities. He had been consecrated by 
his own bishops, and maintained no correspondence with the see oi 
Rome. 

3. His son Otho (the great), A. D. 938, again united Italy to the 
empire, and kept the popedom in complete subjection. He made 
Denmark tributary to the imperial crown, annexed the crown of Bo- 
hemia to his own dominions, and seemed to aim at a paramount 
authority over all the sovereigns of Europe. 

L 



122 MODERN HISTORY. 

4. Otho owed his ascendancy in Italy to the disorders of the pa- 
pacy. Formosus, twice excommunicated by pope John VIII., had 
arrived at the triple crown. On his deatn his rival, pope Stephen 
VII., caused his body to be dug out of* the grave, and, after trial for 
his crimes, condemned it to be flung into the Tiber. The friends oi 
Formosus had interest to procure the deposition of Stephen, who 
was strangled in prison. They sought and found his body, and 
buried it. A succeeding pope, Sergius III., again dug up this ill-fated 
carcase, and threw it into the Tiber. Two infamous women, Marozia 
and Theodora, managed for many years the popedom, and filled the 
chair of St. Peter with their own gallants, or their adulterous off- 
spring. Such was the state of the holy see, when Berengarius duke 
of Friuli disputed the sovereignty of Italy with Hugh of Aries. 
The Italian states and pope John XII., who took part against Beren- 
garius, invited Otho to compose the disorders of the country. He 
entered Italy, defeated Berengarius, and was consecrated emperor 
by the pope, with the titles of Caesar and Augustus ; in return for 
which honours he confirmed the donations made to the holy see by 
his predecessors, Pepin, Charlemagne, and Lewis the debonnaire, 
A. £>. 962. 

5. But John XII. was false to his new ally. He made his peace 
with Berengarius, and both turned their arms against the emperor. 
Otho hew back to Rome, and revenged himself by the trial and 
deposition of the pope ; but he had scarcely left the city, when 
John, by the aid of his party, displaced his rival Leo VIII. Otho 
once more returned, and took" exemplary vengeance on his enemies, 
by hanging one half of the senate. Calling together the lateran 
council, he created a new pope, and obtained from the assembled 
Lishops a solemn acknowledgment of the absolute right of the em- 

fieror to elect to the papacy, to give the investiture of the crown of 
taly, aud to nominate to all vacant bishoprics ; concessions observed 
no longer than while the emperor was present to enforce them. 

6. Such was the state of Rome an .1 Italy under Otho the great; 
and it continued to be much the same under his successors for a cen- 
tury. The emperors asserted their sovereignty over Italy and the 
popedom, though with a constant resistance on the part of the 
Romans, and a general repugnance of the pope, when once establish- 
ed. In those ages of ecclesiastical profligacy it was not unusual to 
put up the popedom to sale. Benedict Vlll. and John XIX., two 
brothers, publicly bought the chair of St. Peter, one after the other ; 
and, to keep it in their family, it was purchased afterwards by their 
friends for Benedict IX., a cnild of twelve years of age. Three 
popes, each pretending regular election and equal right, agreed first 
to divide the revenues between them, and afterwards sold all their 
shares to a fourth. 

7. The emperor Henry III., a prince of great ability, strenuously 
vindicated his right to supply the pontifical chair, and created three 
successive popes without opposition. 



MODERN HISTORY. 123 



SECTION XII. 

HISTORY OF DR1TAIN FROM ITS EARLIEST PERIOD DOWN 
TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST. 

1. The history of Britain has been postponed to this time, that il 
may be considered in one connected view from its earliest period to 
the end of the Anglo-Saxon government. 

We strive not to pierce through that mist of obscurity which veils 
the original population of the British isles ; remarking only, as a mat- 
ter of high probability, that they derived their first inhabitants from 
the Celtae of Gaul. Their authentic history commences with the first 
Roman invasion; and we learn from Caesar and Tacitus, that the 
country was at that period in a state very remote from barbarism. 
It was divided into a number of small independent sovereignties, each 

{)rince having a regular army and a fixed revenue. The manners, 
anguage, and religion of the people, were the same as those of the 
Gallic Celtae. The religion was the druidical system, whose in- 
fluence pervaded every department of the government, and, by fts 
Eower over the minds of the people, supplied the imperfection of 
iws. 

2. Julius Caesar, after the conquest of Gaul, turned his eyes 
towards Britain. He landed on the southern coast of the island, 55 
A. C. ; and meeting with most obstinate resistance, though on the 
whole gaining some advantage, he found himself obliged, after a 
short campaign, to withdraw fo-r the winter into Gaul. He returned 
in the following summer with a great increase of force, an army of 
20,000 foot, a competent body of horse, and a fleet of 800 sail. The 
independent chiefs of the Britons united their forces under Cassibe- 
lanus king of the Trinobantes, and encountering the legions with 
great resolution, displayed all the ability of practised warriors. But 
the contest was vain. Caesar advanced into the country, burnt Veru- 
lamium, the capital of Cassibelanus, and, after forcing the Britons 
into articles of submission, returned to Gaul. 

3* The domestic disorders of Italy gave tranquillity to the Britons 
for near a century ; but, in the reign of Claudius, the conquest of the 
island was determined. The emperor landed in Britain and com- 

SelJ.ed the submission of the south-eastern provinces. Ostorius Scapula 
efeated Caractacus, who was sent prisoner to Rome. Suetonius 
Paulinus, the general of Nero, destroyed Mona (Anglesey, or as 
others think, Man), the centre of the druidical superstition. The 
Iceni (inhabitants of Norfolk and Suffolk), under their queen Boadicea, 
attacked several of the Roman settlements. London, with its Roman 
garrison, was burnt to ashes. But a decisive battle ensued, in which 
80,000 of the Britons fell in the field, A. D. 61. Thirty years after 
in the reign of Titus, the reduction of the island was completed by 
the Roman general, Julius Agricola. He secured the Roman prov 
ince against invasion from the Caledonians, by walls and garrisons ; 
and reconciled the southern inhabitants to the government of their 
conquerors, by the introduction of Roman arts and improvements. 
Under Severus the Roman province was extended far into the north 
of Scotland. 

4. With the decline of the Roman power in the west, the 
6outhern Britons recovered their liberty, but it was only to become 



124 MODERN HISTORY. 

the object of incessant predatory invasion from their brethren of the 
north. The Romans, after rebuilding the wall of Severus, finally bid 
adieu to Britain, A. D. 448. The Picts and Caledonians now broke 
down upon the south, ravaging and desolating the country, without a 
purpose of conquest, and merely, as it appears, for the supply of their 
temporary wants. After repeated application for aid from Rome 
without success, the Britons meanly solicited the Saxons for succour 
and protection. 

5. The Saxons received the embassy with great satisfaction. Brit- 
ain had been long known to them in their piratical voyages to its 
coasts. They landed to the amount of 1,600, under the command of 
Hengist and Horsa, A. D. 450 ; and joining the South Britons, soon 
compelled the Scots to retire to their mountains. They next turned 
their thoughts to the entire reduction of the Britons, and received 
large reinforcements of their countrymen. After an obstinate contest 
of near 150 years, they reduced the whole of England under the Sax- 
on government. Seven distinct provinces became as many indepen- 
dent kingdoms. 

6. The history of the Saxon heptarchy is uninteresting, from its 
obscuritv and confusion. It is sufficient to mark the duration of the 
several kingdoms, till their union under Egbert. Kent began in 455, 
and lasted, under seventeen princes, till 827, when it was subdued by 
the West Saxons. Under Ethelbert, one of its kings, the Saxons 
were converted to Christianity by the monk Augustine. Northumber- 
land began in 597, and lasted, under twenty-three kings, till 792. 
East Anglia began in 575, and ended in 793. Mercia subsisted from 
582 to 827. Essex had fourteen princes, from 527 to 747. Sussex 
had five kings before its reduction under the dominion of the West 
Faxons, about 600. Wessex ( the country of the West Saxons) began 
m 519, and had not subsisted above eighty years, when Cadwalla, 
king of Wessex, conquered Sussex, and annexed it to his dominions. 
As there was no fixed rule of succession, it ; was the policy of the Sax- 
on princes to put to death all the rivals of their intended successor. 
From this cause, and from the passion for celibacy, the royal families 
were nearly extinguished in the kingdoms of the heptarchy ; and Eg- 
bert, prince of the West Saxons, remained the sole surviving descendant 
of the Saxon conquerors of Britain. This circumstance, so favourable 
to his ambition, prompted him to attempt the conquest of the heptar- 
chy; and he succeeded in the enterprise. By nis victorious arms 
and judicious policy all the separate states w T ere united into one great 
kingdom, A. D. 827, near 400 years after the first arrival of the Sax- 
ons in Britain. 

7. England, thus united, was far from enjoying tranquillity. The 
piratical Normans or Danes had for fifty years desolated her coasts, 
and continued, for some centuries after this period, to be a perpetual 
scourge to the country. Under Alfred (the great), grandson of Eg- 
bert, the kingdom was from this cause reduced to extreme wretched- 
n ess. The heroic Alfred in one year defeated the Danes in eight bat- 
tles; but a new irruption of their countrymen forced him to solicit a 
peace, which these pirates constantly interrupted by new hostilities 
A Ifred was compelled to seek his safety for many months in an obscure 
quarter of the country, till the disorders of the Danish army offered 
a fair opportunity of attacking them, which he improved to the entire 
defeat of his enemies. He might have destroyed them all, but chose 
rather to spare and to incorporate them with his English subjects. 
This clemency did not restrain their countrymen from attempting a 



MODERN HISTORY. 12b 

new invasion. They were again defeated with immense loss; and 
the extreme severity which it was necessary to exercise against the 
vanquished, had the effect of suspending the Danish depredations for 
several wars. 

8. Alfred, whether considered in his public or private character, 
deserves to be reckoned among the best and greatest of princes. He 
united the most enterprising and heroic spirit with consummate pru- 
dence and moderation, the utmost vigour of authority with the most 
engaging gentleness of manner, the most exemplary justice with the 
greatest lenity, the talents of the statesman and the man of letters 
with the intrepid resolution and conduct of the general. He found 
the kingdom in the most miserable condition to which anarchy, do- 
mestic barbarism, and foreign hostility, could reduce it : he brought 
it to a pitch of eminence surpassing, in many respects, the situation of 
its contemporary nations. 

9. Alfred divided England into counties, with their subdivisions of 
hundreds and tithings. The tithing or decennary consisted of ten 
families, over wiiich presided a tithing-man or borg-holder ; and ten 
of these composed the hundred. Every house-holder was answerable 
for his family, and the tithing-man for all within his tithing. In the 
decision of differences the tithing-man had the assistance of the rest 
of his decennary. An appeal lay from the decennary to the court of 
the hundred, which was assembled every four weeks ; and the cause 
was tried by a jury of twelve freeholders, sworn to do impartial jus- 
tice. An annual meeting of the hundred was held for the regulation 
of the police of the district. The county-court, superior to that of 
the hundred, and consisting of all the freeholders, met twice a year 
after Michaelmas and Easter, to determine appeals from the hundreds, 
and settle disputes between the inhabitants of different hundreds. 
The ultimate appeal from all these courts lay to the king in council ; 
and the frequency of these appeals prompted Alfred to extreme cir- 
cumspection in the appointment of his judges. He composed for the 
regulation of these courts, and of his kingdom, a body of laws, the 
basis of the common law of England. 

10. Alfred gave every encouragement to the cultivation of letters, 
as the best means of eradicating barbarism. He invited, from every 
quarter of Europe, the learned to reside in his dominions, established* 
schools, and is said to have founded the university of Oxford. He 
was himself a most accomplished scholar for the age in which he 
lived, as appears from the works which he composed : poetical apo- 
logues, the translation of the. histories of Bede and Orosius ; and of Bo- 
ethius on the consolation of philosophy. In every view of his char- 
acter we must regard Alfred the great as one of the best and wisest 
men that ever occupied the regal seat. He died at the age of fifty- 
three, A. D. 901, after a glorious reign of twenty-nine years and a 
half. 

11. The admirable institutions of Alfred were partially and feebly 
enforced under his successors ; and England, still a prey to the rava- 
ges of the Danes and intestine disorder, relapsed into confusion and 
barbarism. The reigns of Edward the elder, the son of Alfred, and 
of his successors, Athelstan, Edmund, and Eared, were tumultuous and 
anarchical. The clergy began to extend their authority over the 
throne, and a series of succeeding princes were the obsequious slaves 
ot their tyranny and ambition. In the reign of Ethelred, A. D. 981, 
the Danes seriously projected the conquest of England; and led by 
Sweyn king of Denmark, anl Olaus king of Norway, made a more 

L2 



126 MODERN HISTORY. 

formidable descent, won several important battles, and were restrain- 
ed from the destruction of London only by a dastardly submission, 
and a promise of tribute to be paid by the inglorious Ethelred. The 
English nobility were ashamed of their prince, and, seeing no other 
relief to the kingdom, made a tender of the crown to the Danish 
monarch. On the death of Sweyn, Ethelred attempted to regain his 
kingdom, but found in Canute, the son of Sweyn, a prince determined 
to support his claims. On the death of Ethelred, his son Edmund 
Ironside gallantly but ineffectually opposed Canute. At length a 
partition of the kingdom was made between Canute and Edmund, 
which, after a few months, the Danes annulled by the murder of 
Edmund, thus securing to their monarch Canute the throne of all 
England, A. D. 1,017. Edmund left two children, Edgar Atheling, 
and Margaret, afterwards wife to Malcolm Canmore, king of Scot- 
land. 

12. Canute, the most powerful monarch of his time, sovereign of 
Denmark, Norway, and England, swayed, for seventeen years, the 
sceptre oi England with a firm and vigorous hand. He was severe 
in the beginning of his reign, while his government was insecure 
but mild and equitable when possessed of a settled dominion, He 
left, A. D. 1,036, three sons, Sweyn, who was crowned king of Nor- 
way, Harold, who succeeded to the throne of England, and Hardi- 
canute, sovereign of Denmark. Harold, a merciless tyrant, died in 
the fourth year of his reign, and was succeeded by Hardicanute, 
who, after a violent administration of two years, died in a lit of de 
bauch. The English seized this opportunity of shaking off the 
Danish yoke, and conferred the crown on Edward, a younger son of 
Ethelred, rejecting the preferable right of Edgar Atheling, the son 
of Edmund, who, unfortunately for his pretensions, was, at this time 
abroad in Hungary. Edward, surnamed the confessor, A. D. 1,041, 
reigned weakly and ingloriously for twenty-five years. The rebel- 
lious attempts of Godwin, earl of Wessex, aimed at nothing less than 
a usurpation of the crown ; and on his death, his son Harold, cherish- 
ing secretly the same views of ambition, had the address to secure to 
his interest a very formidable party in the kingdom. Edward, to de- 
feat these views, bequeathed the crown to William duke of Norman- 
dy, a prince whose great abilities and personal prowess had rendered 
hi3 name illustrious over Europe. 

13. On the death of Edward the confessor, 1,066, the usurper 
Harold took possession of the throne, which the intrepid Norman 
determined immediately to reclaim as his inheritance of right. He 
made the most formidable preparations, aided, in this age of roman- 
tic enterprise, by many of the sovereign princes, and a vast body ol 
the nobility, from the different continental kingdoms. A Norwegian 
fleet of 300 sail entered the Humber (a river on the eastern coast 
of England). The troops were disembarked, and, after one success- 
ful engagement, were defeated by the English army in the interest 
of Harold. William landed his army on the coast of Sussex, to the 
amount of 60,000 ; and the English, under Harold, flushed with their 
recent success, hastily advanced to meet him, being imprudently re- 
solved to venture all on one decisive battle. The total rout and dis- 
comfiture of the English army in the field of Hastings, on the 14th 
day of October, 1,066, and the death of Harold, after some fruitless 
attempts of further resistance, put William duke of Normandy in 
possession of the throne of' England. 



MODERN HISTORY. m 



SECTION XIII. 



OF THE GOVERNMENT, LAWS, AND MANNERS OF THE 
ANGLO-SAXONS. 

1. The government, laws, and manners of the Anglo-Saxons have 
become a subject of inquiry to modern writers, as being supposed to 
have had influence in the formation of the British constitution. 
The government of the Saxons was the same as that of all the an- 
cient Germanic nations, and they naturally retained, in their new 
settlement in Britain, a policy similar to "their accustomed usages. 
Their subordination was chiefly military, the king having no more 
authority than what belonged to the general, or military leader. 
There was no strict rule of succession to the throne ; for though the 
king was generally chosen from the family of the last prince, yet 
the choice usually fell on the person of the best capacity for govern- 
ment. In some instances the destination of the last sovereign regu- 
lated the choice. We know very little of the nature of the Anglo- 
Saxon government, or of the distinct rights of the sovereign and 
people. 

2. One institution common to all the kingdoms of the heptarchy was 
the wittenagemot, or assembly of the wise men, whose consent was 
requisite for enacting laws, and ratifying the chief acts of public ad- 
ministration. The bishops and abbots formed a part of this assem- 
bly ; also the aldermen, or earls, and governors of counties. The 
wites, or wise men, are discriminated from the prelates and nobility, 
and nave by some been supposed to have been Hie representaiived 
of the commons. But we hear nothing of election or representation 
in those periods, and we must therefore presume that they were 
merely landholders, or men of considerable estate, who, from their 
weight and consequence in the country, were held entitled, without 
any election, to take a share in the public deliberations. 

3. The Anglo-Saxon government was extremely aristocraticah 
the regal authority being very limited, the rights of the people little 
known or regarded, and the nobility possessing much uncontrolled 
and lawless rule over their dependents. The offices of government 
were hereditary^ in their families, and they commanded the whole 
military force of their respective provinces. So strict was the clien- 
tela between these nobles and their vassals, that the murder of a vas- 
sal was compensated by a tine paid to his lord. 

4. There were three ranks of the people, the nobles, the free, and 
the slaves. The nobles were either the kin-^s thanes, who hela 
their lands directly from the sovereign, or less thanes, who held land? 
from the former. One law of Athelstan declared, that a merchant 
who had made three voyages on his own account was entitled to the 
dignity of thane ; another decreed the same rank to a ceorle, or hus* 
bandman, who was able to purchase five hides of land, and had a 
chapel, a kitchen, a hall, and a bell. The ceorles, or freemen of the 
lower rank, occupied the farms of the thanes, for which they paid 
rent; and they were removable at the pleasure of their lord. The 
slaves or villains were either employed in domestic purposes, or in 
cultivating the lands. A master was fined for the murder of his slave ; 
and if he mutilated him, the slave recovered his freedom. 

5. Under this aristocratical government there were some traces of 



,: 



128 MODERN HISTORY- 

the ancient Germanic democracy. The courts of the decennary, the 
hundred, and the county, were a considerable restraint on the pow- 
er of the nobles. In the county-courts the freeholders met twice 
a year to determine appeals by the majority of suffrages. The 
alderman presided in those courts, but had no vote : he received a 
third of the fines, the remaining two-thirds devolving to the king, 
which was a great part of the royal revenue. Pecuniary fines were 
the ordinary atonement for every species of crime, and the modes 
of proof were the ordeal by fire or water, or by compurgators.. 
(Part II.. Sect. V., § 7.) 

6. As to the military force, the expense of defending the state lay 
equally on all the land, every five hides or ploughs being taxed to 
furnish a soldier. There were 243,600 hides in England, conse- 
quently the ordinary military force consisted of 48,720 men. ' 

7 The king's revenue, besides the fines imposed by tne courts, 
consisted partly of his demesnes or property-lands, which were ex- 
tensive, and partly in imposts on boroughs and sea-ports. The Dane- 
gelt was a tax imposed by the states, either for payment of tribute 
exacted by the Danes, or for defending the kingdom against them. 
By the custom of gavelkind, the land was divided equally among all 
the male children of the deceased proprietor. Lands held by the 
tenure of Borough-English, on the death of the tenant, went to the 
youngest son, instead of the eldest Book-land was that which was 
held by charter, and folk-land what was held by tenants removable 
at pleasure. 

8. The Anglo-Saxons were behind the Normans in every point ot 
civilization ; and the conquest was therefore to them a real advan- 
tage, as it led to material improvement in arts, science, government, 
and laws. 

SECTION XIV. 

STATE OF EUROPE DURING THE TENTH, ELEVENTH, AND 
TWELFTH CENTURIES. 

1 . France, from the extent and splendour of its dominion under 
Charlemagne, had dwindled to a shadow under his weak posterity. 
At the end of the Carlovingian period France comprehended neither 
Normandy, Dauphine, nor Provence. On the death of Lewis V. 
(Faineant), the crown ought to have devolved on his uncle, Charles 
of Brabant, as the last male of the race of Charlemagne; but Hugh 
Capet, lord of Picardy and Champagne, the most powerful of the 
French nobles, was elected sovereign by the voice of his brothei 
peers, A. D. 987. The kingdom, torn by parties, suffered much 
domestic misery under the reign of Hugh, and that of his successoi 
Robert, the victim of papal tyranny, for daring to marry a chstan* 
cousin without the dispensation of the church. 

2. The prevailing passion of the times was pilgrimage and chiv- 
alrous enterprise. In this career of adventure the Normans most 
remarkably distinguished themselves. In 983 they relieved the 
prince of Salerno, by expelling the Saracens from his territory. 
They did a similar service to pope Benedict VIII., and the duke of 
Capua ; while another band of their countrymen fought first against 
the Greeks, and afterwards against the popes, always selling their ser- 
vices to those who best rewarded them. William Fierabras, and his 
brothers, Humphrey, Robert, and Richard, kept the pope a prisoner 



MODERN niSTORY. 

for a year at JBenevento, and forced the court ot ome to yield Capua 
to Richard and Apulia and Calabria to Robert, with the investiture 
of Sicily, if* he should gain the country from the Saracens. In 1,101 
Rogero the Norman completed the conquest of Sicily, of which the 
popes continued to be the lords paramount. 

3k. The north of Europe was in those periods extremely barba 
rous. Russia received the christian religion in the eighth centurj 
Sweden, after its conversion in the ninth century, relapsed into idola 
try, as did Hungary and Bohemia. The Constantinopolitan empire 
defended its frontiers with difficulty against the Bulgarians on the 
west, and against the Turks and Arabians on the east and north. 

4. In Italy, excepting the territory of the popedom, the principali- 
ties of the independent nobles, and the states of Venice and Genoa, the 
greater part of the country was now in the possession of the Nor- 
mans. Venice and Genoa were rising gradually to great opulence from 
commerce. Venice was for some ages tributary to the emperors ol 
Germany. In the tenth century its doge assumed the title of duke 
of Dalmatia, of which the republic had acquired the property by 
conquest, as well as of Istria, Spalatro, Ragusa, and Narenza. 

5. Spain was chiefly possessed by the Moors ; the christians retain- 
ing only about a fourth of the kingdom, namely, Asturia, part of Castile 
and Catalonia, Navarre, and Arragon. Portugal was likewise occu- 
pied by the Moors. Their capital was Cordova, the seat of luxury 
and magnificence. In the tenth century the Moorish dominions were 
split among a number of petty sovereigns, who were constantly at 
war with one another. Such, unfortunately, was likewise the situa- 
tion of the christian part of the kingdom ; and it was no uncommon 
policy for the christian princes to form alliances with the Moors 
against one another. Besides these the country abounded with inde- 
pendent lords who made war their profession, and performed the 
office of champions in deciding the quarrels of princes, or enlisted 
themselves in their service with all their vassals and attendants. Oi 
these, termed cavalleros andantes, or knights-errant, the most dis- 
tinguished was Rodrigo the cid, who undertook for his sovereign. 
Alphonso king of Old Castile, to conquer the kingdom of New Cas- 
tile, and achieved it with success, obtaining the government of Va- 
lencia as the reward of his services. 

6. The contentions between the imperial and papal powers made 
a istinguished figure in those ages. Henry III. vindicated the im- 
perial right to fill the chair of St. Peter, and nominated three suc- 
cessive popes, without the intervention of a council of the church. 
But in the minority of his son Henry IV., this right was frequently inter 
rup ed, and Alexander II. kept his seat, though the emperor named 
ano her in his place. It was the lot of this emperor to experience 
the utmost extent of papal insolence and tyranny. After a spirited 
contest with Gregory VII., in which the pope was twice his prisoner, 
and the emperor as "often excommunicated and deposed, Henry fell 
at length the victim of ecclesiastical vengeance. Urban II., a succes 
sor of Greg'ory, prompted the two sons of Henry to rebel against 
their father ; and his misfortunes were terminated by imprisonment 
an death in 1,106. The same contests went on under a succession of 
popes and emperors, but ended commonly in favour of the former. 
Frederick I. (Barbarossa), a prince of high spirit, after an indignant 

enial of the supremacy of Alexander III., and a refusal of the cus- 
tomary homage, was at length compelled to kiss his feet, and appease 
his holiness by a large cession of territory. Pope Celestinus kicked 

17 



130 MODERN HISTORY. 

off the imperial crown of Henry VI., while doing homage on his 
knees, but made amends for this insolence by the gift of Naples and 
Sicily, from which Henry had expelled the Normans. These terri- 
tories now became an appanage of the empire, 1,194. The suc- 
ceeding popes rose on the pretensions of their predecessors, till at 
length Innocent 111., in the beginning of the thirteenth century, estab- 
lished the power of the popedom on a settled basis, and obtained a 
positive acknowledgment of the papal supremacy, or the right prin- 
cipaliter ct Jinaliter {principally and finally) to confer the imperial 
crown. It was the same pope Innocent whom we shall presently 
see the disposer of the crown of England in the reign of the tyrant 
John. 



SECTION XV 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE ELEVENTH, TWELFTH, AND 
PART OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURIES. 

1. The consequence of the battle of Hastings was the submission 
of all England to William the conqueror. The character of this 
prince was spirited, haughty, and tyrannical, yet not without a por- 
tion of the generous affections. He disgusted his English subjects 
by the strong partiality which he showed to his Norman followers, 
preferring them to all offices of trust and dignity. A conspiracy 
arose from these discontents, which William defeated, and avenged 
with signal rigour and cruelty. He determined henceforward to 
treat the English as a conquered people, a policy that involved his 
reign in perpetual commotions, which, while they robbed him of all 
peace of mind, aggravated the tyranny of his disposition. To his 
own children he owed the severest of his troubles. His eldest son 
Robert rose in rebellion, to wrest from him the sovereignty ot 
Maine ; and his foreign subjects took part with the rebel. William 
led against them an army of the English, and was on the point of 
perishing in fight by his son's hand, Philip I. of France had aided 
this rebellion, which was avenged by William, who carried havoc and 
devastation into the heart of his kingdom, but was killed in the en- 
terprise by a fail from his horse, 1,087. He bequeathed England to 
William his second son ; to Robert he left Normandy ; and to Henry, 
his youngest son, the property of his mother Matilda. 

2. William the conqueror introduced into England the feudal law, 
dividing the whole kingdom, except the royal demesnes, into baron- 
ies, and bestowing the most of these, under the tenure of military 
service, on his Norman followers. By the forest laws he reserved 
to himself the exclusive privilege of killing game over all the 
kingdom.; a restriction resented by his subjects above every other 
mark of servitude. Preparatory to the introduction of the feudal 
tenures, he planned and accomplished a general survey of all the 
lands in the kingdom, with a distinct specification of their extent, na 
ture, value, names of their proprietors, and an enumeration of every 
class of inhabitants who lived on them. This most valuable record, 
called Doomsday-book, is preserved in the English exchequer, and is 
now printed. 

3. William II. (Rufus) inherited the vices, without any of the 
virtues, of his father. His reign is distinguished by no event of im- 

rtance, and, after the defeat of one conspiracy in its outset, pre 



MODERN HISTORY. 131 

sents nothing but a dull career of unresisted despotism. After a reign 
of thirteen years he was killed when hunting by the random shot of 
an arrow, 1,100. The crown of England would have devolved on his 
elder brother Robert ; but his absence on a crusade in Palestine made 
way for the unopposed succession of his younger brother Henry, 
who, by his marriage with Matilda, the niece of Edgar Atheling, unit- 
ed the last remnant of the Saxon with the Norman line. With most 
criminal ambition, he now invaded his brother's dominions of Norman- 
dy; and Robert, on his return, was defeated in battle, and detained 
for life a prisoner in England. The crimes of Henry were expiated 
by his misfortunes. His only son was drowned in his passage from 
Normandy. His daughter Matilda, married first to the emperor Hen- 
ry V., and afterwards to Geoifrey Plantagenet of Anjou, was destined 
to be his successor ; but the popularity of his nephew Stephen, son 
of the count of Blois, defeated these intentions. Henry I. died in Nor- 
mandy, after a reign of thirty-five years, A. D. 1,135; and, in spite of 
his destination to Matilda, Stephen seized the vacant throne. The 
party of Matilda, headed by her natural brother, the earl of Glouces- 
ter, engaged, defeated, and made Stephen prisoner. Matilda in her 
turn mounted the throne ; but, unpopular from the tyranny of her 
disposition, she was solemnly deposed by the prevailing party of her 
rival ; and Stephen was once more restored. He found, however, in 
Henry Planlagenet, the son of Matilda, a more formidable competitor. 
Of a noble and intrepid spirit, he resolved, while yet a boy, to reclaim 
his hereditary crown ; and, landing in England, won by his prowess, 
and the favour of a just cause, a great part of the kingdom to his in 
terest. By treaty with Stephen, who was allowed to reign for life 
he secured the succession at his death, which soon after ensued, 
1,154. 

4. Henry II., a prince in every sense deserving of the throne, began 
his reign with the reformation of all the abuses of the government of 
his predecessors ; revoking all impolitic grants, abolishing partial im- 
munities, regulating the administration of justice, and establishing the 
freedom of the towns by charters, which are at this day the basis of 
the national liberty. Happy in the affections of his people, and pow- 
erful in the vast extent of additional territory which he enjoyed on 
the continent in right of his father and of his wife, the heiress of a 
great portion of France, his reign had every promise of prosperity 
and happiness; but from one fatal source these pleasing prospects 
were all destroyed. Thomas Becket was raised by Henry from ob- 
scurity to the office of chancellor of England. On the vacancy of the 
see of Canterbury the. king, desirous of his aid in the correction of 
ecclesiastical abuses, conferred the primacy on his favourite ; and the 
arrogant Becket availed himself of that authority to abase the prerog- 
ative of his sovereign, and exalt the spiritual power above the crown. 
It was disputed, whether a priest could be tried for a murder, and pun- 
ished by the civil court. It was determined in the affirmative by the 
councirof Clarendon, against the opinion of Becket. Pope Alexander 
III. annulled the decree of the council; and Becket, who took pai- 
with the pope, was deprived by Henry of all his dignities and estates. 
He avenged himself by the excommunication of the king's ministers: 
and Henry, in return, prohibited all intercourse with the see of Rome. 
At lengtlfboth parties found it their interest to come to a good under- 
standing. Becket was restored to favour, and reinstated in his primacy, 
when the increasing insolence of his demeanour drew from the king 
some hasty expressions of indignation, which his servants interpreted 



132 MODERN HISTORY. 

into a sentence of proscription, and, trusting that the deed would be 
grateful to their master, murdered the prelate while in the act of 
celebrating vespers at the altar. For this shocking action Henry 
expressed the regret which he sincerely felt, and the pope indulgent- 
ly granted his pardon, on the assurance of his dutiful obedience to 
the holy church. 

5. The most important event of the reign of Henry II. was the 
conquest of Ireland. The Irish, an early civilized people, and among 
the first of the nations of the west who embraced the christian reli- 
gion, were, by frequent invasions of the Danes, and their own domes- 
tic commotions, replunged into barbarism for many ages. In the 
twelfth century the kingdom consisted of five separate sovereignties, 
Ulster, Leinster, Munster, Meath, and Connaught; but these were 
subdivided among an infinite number of petty chie/s, owing a very 
weak allegiance to their respective sovereigns. Dermot Macmor- 
rogh, expelled from his kingdom of Leinster for a rape on the daugh- 
ter of the king of Meath, sought protection from Henry, and engaged 
to become his feudatory, if he should recover his kingdom by the aid 
of the English. Henry empowered his subjects to invade Ireland, 
and, while Strongbow earl of Pembroke and his followers were lay- 
ing waste the country, landed in the island in 1,172, and received the 
submission of many oi the independent chiefs. Roderick O'Connor, 
prince of Connaught, whom the Irish elected nominal sovereign of 
all the provinces, resisted for three years the arms of Henry, but 
finally acknowledged his dominion by a solemn embassy to the king 
at Windsor. The terms of the submission were, an annual tribute of 
rvery tenth hide of land, to be applied for the support of government, 
tmd an obligation of allegiance to the crown oi England; on which 
conditions trie Irish should retain their possessions, and Roderick his 
kingdom ; except the territory of the Pale, or that part which the 
English barons had subdued before the arrival of Henry. 

6. Henry divided Ireland into counties, appointed sheriffs in each 
and introduced the laws of England into the territory of the Pale. 
The rest of the kingdom was regulated by their ancient laws, till the 
reign of Edward I., when, at the request of the nation, the English 
laws were extended to the whole kingdom. In the first Irish parlia- 
ment, which was held in the same reign, sir John Wogan presided as 
deputy of the sovereign. From that time there was little intercourse 
between the two kingdoms for some centuries ; nor was the island 
considered as fully subdued till the reign of Elizabeth and of her sue 
cessor James I. 

7. The latter part of the reign of Henry II. was clouded by domes- 
tic misfortunes. His children, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, and John, 
instigated by their unnatr "al mother, rose in rebellion, and, with the 
aid of Louis* VII., king i/' ance, prepared to dethrone t'heir father. 
While opposing them with spirit on the continent, his kingdom was 
invaded by the Scots under William (the lion). He hastened back to 
England, defeated the Scots, and made their king his prisoner. Two 
of his sons, Henry and Geoffrey, expiated their offences by an early 
death ; but Richard, once reconciled, was again seduced from his al- 
legiance, and, in league with the king of France, plundered his fa- 
ther's continental dominions. The spirit of Henry was unequal to his 
domestic misfortunes, and h? died o; a broken heart in the 58th year 
of his age, 1,189, an ornament to the English throne, and a prince sur- 
passing all his contemporaries in the valuable qualities of a sovereign. 



MODERN HISTORY 133 

To him England owed her first permanent improvement in arts, in 
laws, in government, and in civil liberty. 

8. Richard I. (coeur de lion) immediately on his accession embark- 
ed for the Holy Land, on a crusade against the infidels, after plunder- 
ing his subjects of" an immense sum of money to defray the charges 
of the enterprise. Forming a league with Philip Augustus of France, 
the two monarchs joined their forces, and acting for some time in 
concert, were successful in the taking of Acraor Ptolemais; but Phil- 
ip, jealous of his rival's glory, soon returned to France, while Richard 
had the honour of defeating the heroic Saladin in the battle of Asca- 
lon, with prodigious slaughter of his enemies. He prepared now foi 
the siege of Jerusalem; but, finding his army wasted with famine and 
fatigue, he was compelled to end the war by a truce with Saladin, in 
which ne obtained a free passage to the Holy Land for every chris- 
tian pilgrim. Wrecked in his voyage homeward, and travelling in 
disguise through Germany, Richard was seized, and detained in pris- 
on, by command of the emperor Henry VI. The king of France un- 
generously opposed his release, as did his unnatural brother John, 
from selfish ambition ; but he was at length ransomed by his subjects 
for the sum of 150,000 merks, and, after an absence of nine years, re- 
turned to his dominions. His traitorous brother was pardoned after 
some submission ; and Richard employed the short residue of his 
reign in a spirited revenge against his rival Philip. A truce, howev- 
er, was concluded by the mediation of Rome ; and Richard was soon 
after killed, while storming the castle of one of his rebellious vassals 
in the Limosin. He died in the tenth year of his reign, and forty 
second of his age, 1,199. 

9. John (lack-land) succeeded to the throne on the death of his 
brother, but found a competitor in his nephew Arthur, the son ol 
Geoffrey, supported by Philip of France. War was of course renew- 
ed with that country. Arthur, with fatal confidence, throwing him- 
self into the hands of his uncle, was removed by poison or the sword : 
a deed which, joined to the known tyranny of his character, rendered 
John the detestation of his subjects. He was stripped by Philip ol 
his continental dominions, and he made the pope his enemy by an ava- 
ricious attack on the treasures of the church. After an ineffectual 
menace of vengeance, Innocent III. pronounced a sentence of interdict 
against the kingdom, which put a stop to all the ordinances of religion, 
to baptism, ana! the burial of the dead. He next excommunicated 
John, and absolved his subjects from their allegiance ; and he finally 
deposed him, and made a gift of the kingdom to Philip. John, intimi- 
dated into submission, declared himself the pope's vassal, swore alle- 
giance on his knees to the papal legate, and agreed to hold his king 
dom tributary to the holy see. On these conditions, which ensured 
the universal hatred and contempt of his people, he made his peace 
with the church. It was natural that his subjects, thus trampled upon 
and sold, should vindicate their rights. The barons of the king- 
dom assembled, and, binding themselves by oath to a union of meas- 
ures, resolutely demanded from the king a ratification of a charter of 
privileges granted by Henry I. John appealed to the pope, who, in 
support of his vassal, prohibited the confederacy of the barons as re- 
bellious. The barons were only the more resolute in their purpose, 
and the sword was their last resource. At length John was compelled 
to yield to their demands, and signed at Runymede, on the 19th 
day of June, 1,215, that solemn charter, which is the foundation and 
bulwark of English liberty, Magna Charta {the great charter). 



134 . MODERN HISTORY 

10. By this great charter, 1, the freedom of election to benefices 
was secured to the clergy ; 2, the fines to the overlord on the suc- 
cession of vassals were regulated ; 3, no aids or subsidies were allow- 
ed to be levied from the subject, without the consent of the great 
council, unless in a few special cases ; 4, the crown shall not seize 
the lands of a baron for a debt, while he has personal property 
sufficient to discharge it; 5, all the privileges granted by the king to 
his vassals shall be communicated by them to their inferior vassals ; 
6, one weight and one measure shall be used throughout the king- 
dom ; 7, all men shall pass from and return to the realm at their 
pleasure; 8, all cities and boroughs shall preserve their ancient 
liberties ; 9, the estate of every freeman shall be regulated by his 
will, and, if he die intestate, by the law; 10, the king's court shall be 
stationary, and open to all ; 1 1 , every freeman shall be fined only in 
proportion to his offence, and no fine shall be imposed to his utter 
ruin; 12, no peasant shall, by a fine, be deprived of his instruments 
of husbandry; 13, no person shall be tried on suspicion alone, but 
on the evidence of lawful witnesses; 14, no person shall be tried 
or punished unless by the judgment of his peers and the law ot the 
land. 

11. John granted at the same time the Charta de Foresta {the char- 
ter concerning forests), which abolished the royal privilege of killing 
game over all the kingdom, and restored to the lawful proprietors 
their woods and forests, which they were now allowed to enclose 
and use at their pleasure. As compulsion alone had extorted these 
concessions, John was determined to disregard them, and a foreign 
force was brought into the kingdom to reduce the barons to submis- 
sion. The barons applied for aid to F ranee, and Philip sent his con 
Lewis to England with an army ; and such was the people's hatred 
of their sovereign, that they swore allegiance to this foreigner. At 
this critical period John died at Newark, in 1,216, and an instant 
change ensued. His son Henry III., a boy of nine years of age, was 
crowned at Bristol ; and his uncle, the earl of Pembroke, was appoint- 
ed protector of the realm. The disaffected barons returned to their 
allegiance ; the people hailed their sovereign ; and Lewis with his 
army, after an ineffectual struggle, made peace with the protector, 
and evacuated the kingdom. 



SECTION XVI. 

STATE OF GERMANY AND ITALY IN THE THIRTEENTH 

CENTURY. 

1 Frederick II., son of Henry VI., was elected emperor on the 
resignation of Otho IV., in 1,212. At this period Naples, Sicily, and 
Lombardy, were all appanages of the empire ; and the contentions 
between the imperial and papal powers divided the states of Italy 
into factions, known by the name of Guelphs and Ghibellines , the 
former maintaining the supremacy of the pope, the latter that of the 
emperor. The opposition of Frederick to four successive popes 
was avenged by excommunication and deposition ; yet he kept posses- 
sion of his throne, and vindicated his authority with great spirit. 
Frequent attempts were made against his life, by assassination and 
poison, which he openly attributed to papal resentment. On his 
death, in 1,250, the splendour of the empire was for many years ob- 



MODERN HISTORY. 136 

scured. It was a prey to incessant factions and civil war, the fruit oi 
contested claims of sovereignty. Yet the popes gained nothing by 
its disorders, for the troubles of Italy were equally hostile to their 
ambition. We have seen the turbulent state of England. France 
was equally weak and anarchical ; and Spain was ravaged by the 
contests of the Moors and christians. Yet, distracted as appears the 
situation of Europe, one great project gave a species of union to this 
discordant mass, of which we now proceed to give an account 



SECTION XVII. 

THE CRUSADES, OR HOLY WARS. 

1. The Turks or Turcomans, a race of Tartars from the regions 
of Mount Taurus and Imaus, invaded the dominions of Moscovy 
in the eleventh century, and came down upon the banks of the 
Caspian. The caliphs employed Turkish mercenaries, and they 
acquired the reputation of able soldiers in the wars that took place 
oh occasion of the contested caliphate. The caliphs of Bagdat s the 
Abassidae, were deprived of Syria, Egypt, and Africa, by their rival 
caliphs of the race of Omar ; and the Turks stripped of their do- 
minions both the Abassidae and Ommiades. Bagdat was taken by the 
Turks, and the empire of the caliphs overthrown in 1,055 ; and these 
princes, from temporal monarchs, became now the supreme pontifls 
of the Mahometan faith, as the popes of the christian. At the time 
of the first crusade, in the end of the eleventh century, Arabia was 
governed by a Turkish sultan, as were Persia and the greater por- 
tion of Lesser Asia. — The eastern empire was thus abridged of its 
Asiatic territory, and had lost a great part of its dominions in Europe. 
It retained, however, Greece, Macedonia, Thrace, and Illyria ; and 
Constantinople itself was populous, opulent, and luxurious. Palestine 
was in the possession of the Turks ; and its capital Jerusalem, fallen 
from its ancient consequence and splendour, was yet held in re- 
spect by its conquerors as a holy city, and constantly attracted the re- 
sort of Mahometans to the mosque of Omar, as of christian pilgrims 
to the sepulchre of our Saviour. 

2. Peter the hermit, a native of Amiens, on his return from this 
pilgrimage, complained in loud terms of the grievances which the 
christians suffered from the Turks ; and Urban II. pitched on this 
enthusiast as a fit person to commence the execution of a grand de- 
sign which the popes had long entertained, of arming all Christen- 
dom, and exterminating the infidels from the Holy Land. The project 
was opened in two general councils held at Placentia and Clermont . 
The French possessed more ardour than the Italians ; and an im 
mense multitude of ambitious and disorderly nobles, with all their 
dependents, eager for enterprise and plunder, and assured of eternal 
salvation, immediately took the cross. Peter the hermit led 80,000 
under his banners, and they began their march towards the east in 
1,095. Their progress was marked by rapine and hostility in every 
christian country through which they passed ; and the army of the 
hermit, on its arrival at Constantinople, was wasted down to 20,000. 
The emperor Alexius Comnenus, to whom the crusaders behaved 
with the most provoking insolence and folly, conducted himself with 
admirable moderation and good sense. He hastened to get rid of 
this disorderly multitude, by furnishing them with every aid which 



136 MODERN HISTORY. 

they required, and cheerfully lent his ships to transport them across 
the Bosphorus. The sultan Solyman met them in the plain of 
Nicea, and destroyed the army of the hermit. A new host in the 
mean time arrived at Constantinople, led by more illustrious com- 
manders ; by Godfrey of Bouillon duke of Brabant, Raymond count 
of Thoulouse, Robert of Normandy, son of William king of Eng- 
land, Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard, the conqueror of Sicily, 
and other princes of high reputation. To these, who amounted to 
some hundred thousands, Alexius manifested the same prudent con- 
duct, to accelerate their departure. The Turks, overpowered by 
Qumbers, were twice defeated ; and the crusaders, pursuing their suc- 
cesses, penetrated at length to Jerusalem, which after a siege of six- 
weeks, they took by storm, and with savage fury massacred the 
whole of its Mahometan and Jewish inhabitants, A. D. 1,099. Godfrey 
was hailed king of Jerusalem, but was obliged soon after to cede his 
kingdom to the pope's legate. The crusaders divided Syria and, 
Palestine, and formed four separate states, which weakened their 
power. The Turks began to recover strength ; and the christians 
of Asia soon found it necessary to solicit aid from Europe. 

3. The second crusade set out from the west in 1,146, to the 
amount of 200,009 French, Germans, and Italians, led by Hughj 
brother of Philip I. of France. These met with the same fate 
which attended the army of Peter the hermit. The garrison of 
Jerusalem was at this time so weak, that it became necessary to 
embody and arm the monks for its defence ; and hence arose the 
military orders of the knights templars and hospitallers, and soon 
after the Teutonic, from the German pilgrims. Meantime pone 
Eugenius III. employed St. Bernard to preach a new crusade in 
France, which was headed by its sovereign Lewis VII., (the young), 
who, in conjunction with Conrad III., emperor of Germany, mus- 
tered jointly 300,000 men. The Germans were extirpated by the 
sultan of Iconium ; the French were totally defeated near Laodicea ; 
and the two monarchs, after much disaster, returned with shame to 
their dominions. 

4. The illustrious Saladin, nephew of the sultan of Egypt, formed 
the design of recovering Palestine from the christians ; and besieging 
Jerusalem, he took the city, and made prisoner its sovereign, Guy 
of Lusignan. Pope Clement III., alarmed at the successes of the 
infidels, began to stir up a new crusade from France, England, and 
Germany ; and the armies of each country were headed by their 
respective sovereigns, Philip Augustus, Richard I., and Frederick 
Barbarossa. In this third crusade the emperor Frederick died in 
Asia, and his army, by repeated defeats, mouldered to nothing. 
The English and French were more successful : they besieged and 
took Ptolemais ; but Richard and Philip quarrelled from jealousy ot 
each other's glory, and the French monarch returned in disgust to 
his country. Richard nobly sustained the contest with Saladin, 
whom he defeated near Ascalon ; but his army was reduced by fam- 
ine and fatigue. He concluded a treaty, at least not dishonourable* 
with his enemy, and was forced at length to escape from Palestine 
with a single ship. (See Sect. XV., § 8.) Saladin, revered even by 
the christians, died in 1,195. 

5. A fourth crusade was fitted out in 1 ,202, under Baldwin count 
of Flanders, of which the object was not the extirpation of the infi- 
dels, but the destructior of the empire of the east. Constantinople, 
embroiled by civil war and revolution from disputed claims to the 



MODERN HISTORY. 137 

sovereignty, was besieged and taken by the crusaders; and Baldwin, 
their chief, was elected emperor, to be within a few months dethron 
ed and murdered. The imperial dominions were shared among the 
principal leaders ; and the Venetians, who had lent their ships for the 
expedition, got the isle of Candia (anciently Crete) for their reward. 
Alexius, of the imperial family of trie Commeni, founded a new sove- 
reignty in Asia, which he termed the empire of Trebizond. The ob- 
ject of a fifth crusade was to lay waste Egypt, in revenge for an 
attack on Palestine, by its sultan Saphadin. Partial success and ulti- 
mate ruin was the issue of this expedition, as of all the preceding. 

6. At this period, 1,227, a great revolution took place in Asia. 
Gengiskan with his Tartars broke down from the north upon Persia 
and Syria, and massacred indiscriminately Turks, Jews, and Chris- 
tians, who opposed them. The christian knights, templars, hospital- 
lers, and Teutonic, made a desperate but ineffectual resistance ; and 
Palestine must have been abandoned to these invaders, if its fate had 
not been for a while retarded by the last crusade under Lewis IX. oi 
France. This prince, summoned by Heaven, as he believed, after 
four years' preparation, set out for the Holy Land, with his queen, 
his three brothers, and all the knights of France. His army began 
their enterprise by an attack on Egypt, where, after some consider- 
able successes, they were at length utterly -defeated'; and the 
French monarch, with two of his brothers, fell into the hands of the 
enemy. He purchased his liberty at an immense ransom, and, return- 
ing to France, reigned prosperously and wisely for thirteen years. 
But the same phrensy again assailing him, he embarked on a crusade 
against the Moors in Africa, where he and his army were destroyed 
by a pestilence, 1,270. It is computed that, in the whole of the 
crusades to Palestine, two millions of Europeans were buried in the 
east. 

7. Effects of the crusades. One consequence of the holy wars is 
supposed to have been the improvement of European manners ; but 
the times immediately succeeding the crusades exhibit no such actual 
improvement. Two centuries of barbarism and darkness elapsed 
between the termination of those enterprises and the fall of the 
Greek empire in 1,453, the asra of the revival of letters, and the 
commencement of civilization. A certain consequence of the cru- 
sades was the change of territorial property in all the feudal king- 
doms, the sale of the estates of the nobles, and their division among 
a number of smaller proprietors. Hence the feudal aristocracy was 
weakened, and the lower classes began to acquire weight, and a 
spirit of independence. The towns hitherto bound by a sort of vassal- 
age to the nobles, began to purchase their immunity, acquired the 
right of electing their own magistrates, and were governed by their 
own municipal laws. The church in some respects gained, and in 
others lost by those enterprises. The popes gained a more extend- 
ed jurisdiction ; but the fatal issue of those expeditions opened the 
eyes of the world to the selfish and interested motives which had 
prompted them, and weakened the sway of superstition. Many of the 
religious orders acquired an increase of wealth ; but this was bal- 
anced by the taxes imposed on the clergy. The coin was altered 
and debased in most oi the kingdoms of Europe, from the scarcity 
of specie. The Jews were supposed to have hoarded and concealed 
it, and hence they became the victims of general persecution. The 
most substantial gainers by the crusades were the Italian states of 
Genoa, Pisa, and Venice, from the increased trade to the Levant 

M2 18 



138 MODERN HISTORY. 

for the supply of those immense armies. Venice, as we have seen. 
took an active concern, and obtained her share of the conquered 
territory. 

The age of the crusades brought chivalry to its perfection and gave 
tise to romantic fiction. 

See Kett's Elements of General Knowledge, vol. I. 



SECTION XVIII. 



OF CHIVALRY AND ROMANCE. 

1. Chivalry arose naturally from the condition of society in those 
ages in which it prevailed. Among the Germanic nations the profes- 
sion of arms was esteemed the sole employment that deserved the 
name of manly or honourable. The initiation of the youth to this pro- 
fession was attended with peculiar solemnity and appropriate cere- 
monies. The chief of the tribe bestowed the sword and armour on 
his vassal, as a symbol of their devotion to his service. In the prog- 
ress of the feudal system these vassals, in imitation of their chief, as- 
sumed the power of conferring arms on their sub-vassals, with a 
similar form of mysterious and pompous ceremonial. The candidate 
for knighthood underwent his preparatory fasts and vigils, and re- 
ceived on his knees the accollade and benediction of his chief. Arm- 
ed and caparisoned, he sallied forth in quest of adventure, which, 
whether just or not in its purpose, was ever esteemed honourable in 
proportion as it was perilous. 

2. The esteem of the female sex is characteristic of the Gothic 
manners. In those ages of barbarism the castles of the greater bar- 
ons were the courts of sovereigns in miniature. The society of the 
ladies, who found only in such fortresses a security from outrage, pol- 
ished the manners ; and to protect the chastity and honour of the fair, 
was the best employ and the highest merit of an accomplished knight. 
Romantic exploit therefore had always a tincture of gallantry. 

It hath been through all ages ever seen, 

That with the praise of arms and chivalry 
The prize of beauty still hath joined been, 

And that for reasons special privity : 
For either doth on other much rely ; 

For he, me seems, most fit the fair to serve, 
That can her best defend from villany ; 

And she most fit his service doth deserve 
That fairest is, and from her faith will never swerve. 

Spenser's Fairy Queejt. 

3. To the passion for adventure and romantic love was added a 
high regard for morality and religion ; but as the latter were ever 
subordinate to the former, we may presume more in favour of the 
refinement than of the purity of the knights. It was the pride of a 
knight to redress wrongs and injuries ; but in that honourable employ- 
ment he made small account of those which he committed. It was 
easy to expiate the greatest offences by a penance or a pilgrimage, 
which furnished only a new opportunity for adventurous exploit. 

4. Chivalry, whether it began with the Moors or Normans, attain- 
ed its perfection at the period of the crusades, which presented a no- 



MODERN HISTORY. 13& 

ble object of adventure, and a boundless field for military glory. 
Few indeed returned from those desperate enterprises; but those had 
a high reward in the admiration of their countrymen. The bards and 
romancers sung their praises, and recorded their exploits, with a 
thousand circumstances of fabulous embellishment. 

5. The earliest of the old romances (so termed from the Romance 
language, a mixture of the Frank and Latin, in which they were 
written) appeared about the middle of the twelfth century, the period 
of the second crusade. But those more ancient compositions did not 
record contemporary events, whose known truth would have preclud- 
ed all liberty of fiction or exaggeration. Geoffrey of Monmouth, and 
the author who assumed the name of archbishop Turpin, had free 
scope to their fancy, by celebrating the deeds of Arthur and the 
knights of the round table, and the exploits of Charlemagne and his 
twelve peers. From the fruitful stock of those first romances sprung 
a numerous offspring equally wild and extravagant. 

6. Philosophers have analyzed the pleasure arising from works of 
fiction, and have endeavoured, by various hypotheses, to account for 
the interest which we take in the description of an event or scene 
which is known to be utterly impossible. The fact may be simply 
explained as follows. Every narration is in some degree attenaed 
with a dramatic deception. We enter for the time into the situation 
of the persons concerned ; and, adopting their passions and feelings, 
we lose all sense of the absurdity of their cause, while we see the 
agents themselves hold it for reasonable and adequate. The most in- 
credulous sceptic may sympathize strongly with the feelings of Ham- 
let at the sight of his father's spectre. 

7. Thus powerfully affected as we are by sympathy, even against 
the conviction of our reason, how much greater must have been the 
effect of such works of the imagination in those days, when popular 
superstition gave full credit to the reality, or at least the possibility, 
of all that they described ! And hence we must censure, as both un- 
necessary and improbable, the theory of Dr. Hurd, which accounts 
for all the wildness of the old romances, on the supposition that their 
fictions were entirely allegorical ; which explains the giants and sav- 
ages into the oppressive feudal lords and their barbarous dependents; 
as M. Mallet construes the serpents and dragons which guarded the 
enchanted castles, into their winding walls, fosses, and battlements. 
It were sufficient to sav, that many of those old romances are inex- 
plicable by allegory. They were received by the popular belief as 
truths ; and even their contrivers believed in the possibility of the 
scenes and actions which they described. In latter ages, and in the 
wane of superstition, yet while it still retained a powerful influence, 
the poets adopted allegory as a vehicle of moral instruction: and to 
this period belong those political romances which bear an allegorical 
explanation ; as the Fairy Queen of Spenser, the Orlando of Ariosto, 
and the Gierusalemme Lioerata of Tasso. 

8. In more modern times the taste for romantic composition declin- 
ed with popular credulity ; and the fastidiousness of philosophy affect- 
ed to treat all supernatural fiction with contempt. But it was at 
length perceived that this refinement had cut off a source of very 
high mental enjoyment. The public taste now took a new turn ; and 
this moral revolution is at present lending to its extreme. We are 
gone back to the nursery to listen to tales of hobgoblins ; a change 
which we may safely prognosticate can be of no duration. 



140 MODERN HISTORY. 



SECTION XIX. 



STATE OF EUROPE IN THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH 
CENTURIES. 

1. Constantinople, taken in 1,202 by the crusaders, was possessed 
only for a short time by its conquerors. It was governed by French 
emperors for the space of sixty years, and was retaken by the 
Greeks in 1,281, under Michael Pakeologus, who, by imprisoning and 
putting out the eyes of his pupil Theodore Lascaris, secured to him- 
self the sovereignty. 

2. In the beginning of the thirteenth century Germany was 

foverned by Frederick II , who paid homage to the pope lor the 
ingdom of Naples and Sicily, which was possessed by his son Con- 
rad, and afterwards by his brother Manfred, who usurped the crown 
in violation of the right of his nephew Conradin. Pope Clement IV., 
jealous of the dominion of the imperial family, gave the investiture 
of Naples and Sicily to Charles of Anjou, brother of Lewis IX. oi 
France, who defeated and put to death his competitors. The Sicil- 
ians revenged this act of usurpation and cruelty by the murder, in 
one night, of every Frenchman in the island. This shocking massa- 
cre, termed the Sicilian vespers, happened on Easter Sunday, 1,282. 
It was followed by every evil that comes in the train of civil war and 
revolution. 

3. The beginning of the thirteenth century had been signalized 
by a new species of crusade. The Albigenses, inhabitants of Alby 
in the Pays de Vaud, were bold enough to dispute many of the tenets 
of the catholic church, judging them contrary to the doctrines oi 
scripture. Innocent III. established a holy commission at Thoulouse, 
with power to try and punish those heretics. The count of Thou- 
louse opposed this persecution, and was, for the punishment of his 
offence, compelled by the pope to assist in a crusade against his own 
vassals. Simon de Monfort was the leader of this pious enterprise, 
which was marked by the most atrocious cruelties. The benefits of 
the holy commission were judged by the popes to be so great, that it 
became from that time a permanent establishment, known by the 
name of the inquisition. 

4. The rise of the house of Austria may be dated from 1,274, 
when Rodolphus of Hapsbourg, a Swiss baron, was elected emperor 
of Germany. He owed his elevation to the jealousies of the elec- 
toral princes, who could not agree in the choice of any one of them- 
selves. The king of Bohemia, to whom Rodolphus had been stew- 
ard of the household, could ill brook the supremacy of his former de- 
pendent; and refusing him the customary homage for his Germanic 
possessions, Rodolphus stripped him of Austria, which has ever since 
remained in the family of its conqueror. 

5. The Italian states of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, were at this time 
flourishing and opulent, while most of the kingdoms of Europe (if 
we except England under Edward I.,) were exhausted, feeble, and 
disorderly. A dawning of civil liberty began to appear in France 
under Philip IV. {le bel), who summoned the third estate to the 
national assemblies, which had hitherto consisted of the nobility and 
clergy, 1,303. Philip established perpetual courts of judicature in 
France, under the name of parliaments. Over these the parliament 



MODERN HISTORY. 141 

rf Paris possessed a jurisdiction by appeal ; but it was not till later 
times that it assumed any authority in matters of State. 

6. The parliament of England had before this era begun to assume 
its present constitution. The commons, or the representatives of 
counties and boroughs, were first called to parliament by Henry 
HI. Before that time this assembly consisted only of the greater 
barons and clergy. But of the rise and progress of the constitution 
of England we shall afterwards treat more paticularly in a separate 
section. 

7. The spirit of the popedom, zealous in the maintenance and ex- 
tension of its prerogatives, continued much the same in the thirteenth 
and fourteenth, as we have seen it in the three preceding centuries. 
Philip the fair had subjected his clergy to bear their share of the 
public taxes, and prohibited all contributions to be levied by the pope 
in his dominions. This double offence was highly resented by Boni- 
face VIII., who expressed his indignation by a sentence of excom- 
munication and interdict, and a solemn transference of the kingdom 
of France to the emperor Albert. Philip, in revenge, sent his gen- 
eral Nogaret to Rome, who threw the pope into prison. The 
French, however, were overpowered by the papal troops; and the 
death of Boniface put an end to the quarrel. 

8. It is less easy to justify the conduct of Philip the fair to the 
knights templars than his behaviour to pope Boniface. The whole 
of this order had incurred his resentment, from suspicion of harbour- 
ing treasonable designs. He had influence with Clement V. to pro 
cure a papal bull warranting their extirpation from all the christian 
kingdoms: and this infamous proscription was carried into effect 
over all Europe. Those unfortunate men were solemnly tried, not 
for their real offence, but for protended impieties and idolatrous prac- 
tices, and committed to the flames 1,309 — 1,312. 



SECTION XX. 

REVOLUTION OF SWITZERLAND. 

1. The beginning of the fourteenth century was distinguished by 
the revolution of Switzerland, and the rise of the Helvetic republic. 
The emperor Rodolphus of Hapsbourg was hereditary sovereign 
of several of the Swiss cantons, and governed his states with much 
equity and moderation. His successor Albert, a tyrannical prince, 
formed the design of annexing the whole of the provinces to his 
dominion, and of erecting them into a principality for one of his 
sons. The cantons of Schweitz, Ury, and Under wald, which had 
always resisted the authority of Austria, combined to assert their 
freedom ; and a small army of 400 or 500 men defeated an immense 
host of the Austrians in the pass of Morgate, 1,315. The rest of the 
cantons by degrees joined the association. With invincible persever- 
ance the united cantons Won and secured their dear-bought liberty, 
after sixty pitched battles with their enemies. 

2. Constitution of Szmtzerland. The thirteen cantons were united 
by a solemn treaty, which stipulated the proportional succours to be 
furnished by each in the case of foreign hostility, and the measures 
to be followed for securing the union of the states, and accommodat- 
ing domestic differences. With respect to its internal government 
and economy each canton was independent. Of some the constitution 



142 MODERN HISTORY- 

was monarchical, and of others republican. All matters touching 
the general league were transacted either by letters sent to Zurich, 
and thence officially circulated to all the cantons, or by conferences. 
The general diet, where two deputies attended from each canton, was 
held once a year, the first deputy of Zurich presiding. The catholic 
and protestant cantons likewise held their separate diets on occasional 
emergencies. 

3. The Swiss, when at peace, employed their troop3 for hire in 
foreign service, judging it a wise policy to keep alive the military 
spirit of the nation; and the armies thus employed have been equally 
distinguished for their courage and fidelity. The industry and 
economy of the Swiss are proverbial ; and their country supports an 
abundant population, from the zealous promotion of agriculture and 
manufactures. 



SECTION XXI. 

STATE OF EUROPE IN THE THIRTEENTH, FOURTEENTH, AND 
PART OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURIES. 

1. The rival claims of superiority between tne popes and em- 
perors still continued. Henry VIL, the successor of Albert, vindicat- 
ed his right by the sword, triumphantly fought his way to Rome, 
where he was solemnly crowned, and imposed a tribute on all the 
states of Italy. His sudden death was suspected to be the consequence 
of papal resentment. In his time the seat of the popedom was trans- 
ferred by Clement V. from Rome to Avignon, 1,309, where it re- 
mained till 1,377. The factions of Italy were the cause of this re- 
moval. Lewis of Bavaria, the successor of Henry, deposed and ex 
communicated by John XXII., revenged himself by deposing the 
pope. This pontiff, who had originally been a cobbler, surpassed 
most of his predecessors in pride and tyranny. He kept his seat on 
the papal chair, and left at his death an immense treasure accumu- 
lated by the sale of benefices ; while his rival the emperor died in 
Indigence. 

2. His successor in the empire, Charles IV., published, in 1,355, 
the imperial constitution, termed the golden bull, the fundamental law 
of the Germanic body, which reduced the number of electors to 
seven, and settled on them all the hereditary offices of state. The 
electors exemplified their new rights by deposing his son Wenceslaus 
for incapacity, 1,400. Three separate factions of the French and 
Italian cardinals having elected three separate popes, the emperor 
Sigismund judged this division of the church to be a fit opportunity 
for his interference to reconcile all differences, and establish his own 
supremacy. He summoned a general council at Constance in 1,414, 
and ended the dispute by degrading all the three pontiffs, and naming 
a fourth, Martin Colonna. This division of the papacy is termed 
the great schism of the west. 

3. The spiritual business of the council of Constance was no less 
important than its temporal. John Huss, a disciple of Wickliff, was 
tried for heresy, in denying the hierarchy, and satirizing the im 
moralities of the pones and bishops He did not deny the charge, 
and, refusing to confess his errors, was burnt alive. A similar fate 
was the portion of his friend and disciple, Jerom of Prague, who 



MODERN HISTORY. 143 

displayed at his execution the eloquence of an apostle, and the con- 
stancy of a martyr, 1,416. Sigismund felt the consequence of these 
horrible proceedings ; for the Bohemians opposed his succession to 
their vacant crown, and it cost him a war of sixteen years to attain it. 
4. Whatever was the imperial power at this time, it derived but 
small consequence from its actual revenues. The wealth of the 
Germanic states was exclusively possessed by their separate sove- 
reigns, and the emperor had little more than what he drew from 
Bohemia and Hungary. The sovereignty of Italy was an empty 
title. The interest of the emperor in that country furnished only a 
source of faction to its princes, and embroiled the states in perpetual 
quarrels. A series of conspiracies and civil tumults form the annals 
of the principal cities for abo\> e 200 years. Naples and Sicily were 
ruined by the weak and disorderly government of the two Joannas. 
A passion which the younger of these conceived for a soldier of the 
aame of Sforza raised him to the sovereignty of Milan ; and her 
adoption, first of Alphonzo of Arragon, and afterwards of Lewis of 
Anjou, laid the foundation of those contests between Spain and 
France for the sovereignty of the two Sicilies, which afterwards 
agitated all Europe. 



SECTION XXII. 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. 

1. On the death of John, his son Henry III. succeeded to the 
crown of England at nine years of age. He was a prince of ami 
able dispositions, but of weak understanding. His preference d 
foreign favourites disgusted his nobles ; and the want of economy in fife? 
government, and oppressive exactions, deprived him of the affection 
of lis people. Montfort earl of Leicester, son of the leader of the 
crusade against the Albigenses, and brother-in-law of the king, con- 
ceived a plan for usurping the government. He formed a league 
with the barons, on the pretext of reforming abuses, and compelled 
Henry to delegate all the regal power into the hands of twenty-four 
of their number. These divided among themselves the offices of 
government, and new-modelled the parliament, by summoning a cer- 
tain number of knights chosen from each county. This measure 
was fatal to their own power ; for these knights or representatives 
of the people, indignant at Leicester's usurpation, determined to 
restore the royal authority ; and called on prince Edward, a youth 
of intrepid spirit, to avenge his father's wrongs and save the king- 
dom. 

2. Leicester raised a formidable force, and defeated the royal 
army at Lewes, in Sussex, 1,264, and made both the king and prince 
Edward his prisoners. He now compelled the impotent Henry to 
ratify his authority by a solemn treaty. He assumed the character 
of regent, and called a parliament, summoning two knights from 
each of the counties, and deputies from the principal boroughs, the 
first regular plan of the English house of commons. This assembly 
exercising its just rights, and asserting with firmness the re-establish- 
ment of the ancient government of the kingdom, Leicester judged it 
prudent to release the prince from his confinement. Edward was 
no sooner at liberty than he took the field against the usurper, who 
was defeated and slain in the battle of Evesham, on the 4th day of 



144 MODERN HISTORY. 

August, 1 .265. Henry was now restored to his throne by the arms 
of his gallant son, who, after establishing domestic tranquillity, em- 
barked in the last crusade with Lewis IX., and signalized his prowess 
by many valorous exploits in Palestine. He had the honour of con- 
cluding an advantageous truce for ten years with the sultan of Baby- 
lon, and was on his return to England when he received intelligence 
of nis accession to the crown by the death of his father, 1,272. 

3. Edward I. projected the conquest of Wales in the beginning 
of his reign. The Welsh, the descendants of the ancient Britons 
who had escaped the Roman and Saxon conquests, preserved their 
liberty, laws, manners, and language. Their prince, Lewellyn, 
refused his customary homage to the king of England. Edward in- 
vaded Wales, and, surrounding the army of the prince, who retreated 
to the mountains, cut off all his supplies, and compelled him to an 
unqualified submission. The terms demanded were, the surrender 
of a part of the country, a large sum of money, and an obligation of 
perpetual fealty to the crown of England. The Welsh infringed 
this treaty, and Edward marched his army into the heart of the 
country, where the troops of Lewellyn made a most desperate but in- 
effectual resistance. In a decisive engagement, in 1,283, the prince 
was slain. His brother David, betrayed into the hands of the con- 
queror, was inhumanly executed on a gibbet; and Wales, complete- 
ly subdued, was annexed to the crown of England. With a policy 
equally absurd and cruel, Edward ordered the Welsh bards to be put 
to death wherever found ; thereby ensuring the perpetuation of their 
heroic songs, and increasing the abhorrence of the vanquished people 
for their barbarous conqueror. 

4. The conquest of Wales inflamed the ambition of Edward, and 
inspired him with the design of extending his dominion to the ex 
tremity of the island. The designs of this enterprising monarch on 
the kingdom of Scotland invite our attention to that quarter. 



SECTION XXIII. 

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND FROM THE ELEVENTH TO THE 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 

1. The history of Scotland before the reign of Malcolm III., sm> 
named Canmore, is obscure and fabulous. This prince succeeded to 
the throne in 1,057 by the defeat of Macbeth, the murderer of his 
father Duncan. Espousing the cause of Edgar Atheling, heir of the 
Saxon kings of England, whose sister he married, he thus provoked 
a war with William the conqueror, which was equally prejudicial 
to both kingdoms. In an expedition of Malcolm into England it is 
alleged, that, after concluding a truce, he was compelled by William 
to do homage for his kingdom. The truth is, that this homage was 
done for the territories in Cumberland and Northumberland won by 
the Scots, and held in vassalage of the English crown ; though this 
homage was afterwards absurdly made the pretext of a claim of 
feudal sovereignty over all Scotland. In a reign of twenty-seven 
years Malcolm supported a spirited contest with England, both under 
William I. and his son Rufus ; and to the virtues of his queen Mar- 
garet, his kingdom, in its domestic policy, owed a degree of civiliza- 
tion remarkable in those ages of barbarism. 



MODERN HISTORY. 145 

2. Alexander I., his son and successor, defended, with equal spirit 
and good policy, the independence of his kingdom, and hi3 son 
David I., celebrated even by the democratic Buchanan as an honour 
to his country and to monarchy, won from Stephen, and annexed to 
his crown, the whole earldom of Northumberland. In those reigns 
we hear of no claim of the feudal subjection of Scotland to the 
crown of England ; though the accidental fortune of war afterwards 
furnished a ground for it. William I., (the lion), taken prisoner at 
Alnwick by Henry II., was compelled, as the price of his release, to 
do homage for his whole kingdom ; an obligation which his succes- 
sor Richard voluntarily discharged, deeming it to have been unjustly 
extorted. 

3. On the death of Alexander III. without male issue, in 1,285, 
Bruce and Baliol, descendants of David I. by the female line, were 
competitors for the crown, and the pretensions of each were support- 
ed by a formidable party in the kingdom. Edward I. of England, 
chosen umpire of the contest, arrogated to himself, in that character, 
the feudal sovereignty of the kingdom, compelling all the barons to 
swear allegiance to him, and taking actual possession of the country 
by his troops. He then adjudged the crown to Baliol, on the express 
condition of his swearing fealty to him as lord paramount. Baliol, 
however, soon after renouncing his allegiance, the indignant Edward 
invaded Scotland with an immense force, and compelled the weak 
prince to abdicate the throne, and resign the kingdom into his hands 

4. William Wallace, one of the greatest heroes whom history re 
cords, restored the fallen honours of his country. Joined by a few 
patriots, his first successes in attacking the English garrisons brought 
numbers to his patriotic standard. TLheir successes were signal and 
conspicuous. Victory followed upon victory. While Edward was 
engaged on the continent, his troops were utterly defeated in a des- 
perate engagement at Stirling, and forced to evacuate the kingdom. 
Wallace, the deliverer of his country, now assumed the title of gov- 
ernor of Scotland under Baliol, who was Edward's prisoner ; a dis- 
tinction which was followed by the envy and disaffection of many oi 
the nobles, and the consequent diminution of his army. The Scots 
were defeated at Falkirk. Edward returned with a vast accession oi 
force. After a fruitless resistance the Scottish barons finally obtained 

Eeace by a capitulation, from which the brave Wallace was excepted 
y name. A fugitive for some time, he was betrayed into the hands ot 
Edward, who put him to death, with every circumstance of cruelty 
that barbarous revenge could dictate, 1,304. 

5. Scotland found a second champion and deliverer in Robert 
Bruce, the grandson of the competitor with Baliol; who, deeply re- 
senting the humiliation of his country, once more set up the standard 
of war, and gave defiance to the English monarch, to whom his 
father and grandfather had meanly sworn allegiance. Under this in- 
trepid leader the spirit of the nation was roused at once. The Eng- 
lish were attacked in every quarter, and once more entirely driven 
out of the kingdom. Robert Bruce was crowned king at Scone, 
1,306. Edward was advancing with an immense army, and died at 
Carlisle on the 7th day of July, 1,307. He enjoined it with his last 
breath to his son, Edward II., to prosecute the war with the Scots to 
the entire reduction of the country. 

N 19 



(40 MODERN HISTORY. 

SECTION XXIV. 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. 

1 In the reign of Edward 1. we observe the constitution of Eng- 
land gradually advancing. The commons had been admitted to par- 
liament in the latter period of his father Henry III. A statute was 
passed by Edward, which declared, that no tax or impost should be 
levied without the consent of lords and commons. Edward ratified 
the Magna Charta no less than eleven times in the course of his reign ; 
and henceforward this fundamental law began to be regarded as sa- 
cred and unalterable. 

2. Edward II. was in character the very opposite of his father; 
weak, indolent, and capricious ; but of humane and benevolent affec- 
tions. He disgusted his nobles by his attachment to mean and unde- 
serving favourites, whom he raised to the highest dignities of the 
state, and honoured with his exclusive confidence. Piers Gaveston, 
a vicious and trifling minion, whom the king appointed regent when 
on a journey to Paris to marry Isabella, daughter of Philip the fair, 
disgusted the barons to such a pitch, that they compelled the king to 
delegate all the authority of government to certain commissioners, and 
to abandon his favourite to their resentment. He was doomed to 
perpetual imprisonment, and, on attempt to escape, was seized and 
beheaded. 

3. Edward, in obedience to his father's will, invaded Scotland with 
an army of 100,000 men. King Robert Bruce met this immense 
force with 30,000 men at Bannockburn, and defeated them with pro- 
digious slaughter. This important victory secured the independence 
of Scotland. Edward escaped by sea to his own dominions. A new 
favourite, Spenser, supplied the place of Gaveston; but his undeserv- 
ed elevation and overbearing character completed the disaffection of 
the nobles to their sovereign. The queen, a vicious adulteress, join- 
ed the malcontents, and, passing over to France, obtained from her 
brother Charles IV. an army to invade England, and dethrone her 
husband. Her enterprise was successful. Spenser and his father 
were betrayed into the hands of their enemies, and perished on a 
scaffold. The king was taken prisoner, tried by parliament, and sol- 
emnly deposed ; and being confined to prison, was soon after put to 
death in a manner shocking to humanity, 1 ,327. 

4. Edward III., crowned at fourteen years of age, could not submit 
to the regency of a mother stained with the foulest of crimes. His 
father's death was revenged by the perpetual imprisonment of Isabel- 
la, and the public execution of heT paramour Mortimer. Bent on the 
conquest of Scotland, Edward marched to the north with a prodigious 
army, vanquished the Scots in the battle of Halidoun-hill, and placed 
on the throne Edward Baliol, his vassal and tributary. But the king- 
dom was as repugnant as ever to the rule of England, and a favoura- 
ble opportunity was taken for the renewal of hostilities, on the depart- 
ure of Edward for a foreign enterprise, which gave full scope to his 
ambition. 

5. On the death of Charles IV. without male issue, the crown of 
France was claimed by Edward III. of England, in right of his moth- 
er, the sister of Charles, while, in the mean time, the throne was oc 
cupied by the male heir, Philip of Valois. Edward fitted out an in> 



MODERN HISTORY. 141 

mense armament by sea and land, and, obtaining a signal victory over 
the French fleet, landed on the coast of Normandy, and with his son, 
the black prince, ran a career of the most glorious exploits. Philip, 
with 100,000 men, met the English with 30,000, and was entirely de- 
feated in the field of Cressy, August 26, 1,348. Calais was taken by 
the English, and remained in their possession 210 years. The En- 
glish are said to have first used artillery in the battle of Cressy. Fire 
arms were then but a recent invention (1,340)^ and have much con- 
tributed to lessen both the slaughter and the frequency of wars. Mr. 
Hume well observes that war is now reduced nearly to a matter oi 
calculation. A nation knows its power, and, when overmatched, 
eitheryields to its enemies, or secures itself by alliance. 

6. The Scots in the mean time invaded England, and were defeated 
in the battle of Durham by Phiiippa, the heroic queen of Edward III. ; 
and their sovereign David II. was led prisoner to London. A truce 
concluded between Edward and Philip was dissolved by the death of 
the latter. Philip was succeeded by his son John, who took the field 
with 60,000 men against the black prince, and was defeated by him 
with a far inferior number in the signal battle of Poictiers, September 
19, 1,356. John king of France was led in triumph to London, the 
fellow-prisoner of David king of Scotland. But England derived from 
those victories nothing but honour. The French continued the war 
with great vigour during the captivity of their sovereign, who died 
in London in 1,364. They obtained a peace by the cession to the 
English of Poitou, St. Onge, Perigord and other provinces ; and Ed- 
ward consented to renounce his claim to the crown of France. The 
death of the black prince, a most heroic and virtuous man, plunged 
the nation in grief, and broke the spirits of his father, who did not long 
survive him. 

7. Richard II. succeeded his grandfather, in 1,377, at the age of 
eleven. Charles VI. soon after became king of France at the age 
of twelve. Both kingdoms suffered from the distractions attending a 
regal minority. In England the contests for power between the 
king's uncles, Lancaster, York, and Gloucester, embroiled all public 
measures ; and the consequent disorders required a stronger hand to 
compose them than that of the weak and facile Richard. Taking 
advantage of the king's absence, then engaged in quelling an insur- 
rection in Ireland, Henry of Lancaster rose in open rebellion, and 
compelled Richard, at his return, to resign the crown. The parlia- 
ment confirmed his deposition, and he was soon after privately assas- 
sinated. Thus began the contentions between the houses of York 
and Lancaster. 



SECTION XXV. 

ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 
STATE OF MANNERS. 

1. Henry IV. ascended the throne on the deposition of Richard 1L, 
1,399 ; and had immediately to combat a rebellion raised by the earl 
of Northumberland, for placing Mortimer, the heir of the house of 
York, on the throne. The Scots and Welsh took part with the rebels, 
but their united forces were defeated at Shrewsbury, and their lead 
er, young Percy (Hotspur), killed on the field. A'second rebellion 



148 MODERN HISTORY. 

headed bjr the archbishop of York, was quelled by the capital punish.- 
ment of its author. The secular arm was rigorously extended 
against the followers of Wickliff, and this reign saw the first detestable 
examples of religious persecution. The life of Henry was imbitter- 
ed by the youthful disorders of his son the prince of Wales, who 
afterwards nobly redeemed his character. Henry IV. died in 1,413, 
at the age of forty-six. 

2. Henry V. took advantage of the disorders of France, from the 
temporary insanity of its sovereign Charles VI., and the factious 
struggles for power between the dukes of Burgundy and Orleans, 
to invade the kingdom with a large army, which a contagious dis- 
temper wasted down to a fifth of its numbers ; yet with this handful 
of resolute and hardy troops, he defeated the French army of 60,000, 
under the constable D'Albert, in the famous battle of Agincourt, in 
which 10,000 of the enemy were slain, and 14,000 made prisoners, 
October 24, 1,415. Returning to England to recruit his forces, he 
landed again with an army of 25,000, and fought his way to Paris. 
The insane monarch, with his court, fled to Troye, and Henry pur- 
suing, terminated the war by a treaty with tke queen-mother of 
the duke of Burgundy, by which it was agreed that he should marry 
the daughter of Charles vl., and receive the kingdom of France as 
her dowry, which, till the death of her father, he should govern as 
regent. 

3 Mean time the return of Henry to England gave the dauphin 
hopes of the recovery of his kingdom. He was victorious in an 
engagement with the English under the duke of Clarence ; but his 
success was of no longer duration than the absence of the English 
sovereign, who was himself hastening to the period of his triumphs. 
Seized with a mortal distemper, Henry died in the 34th year of his 
age, 1,422, one of the most heroic princes that ever swayed the 
sceptre of England. His brother, the duke of Bedford, was declared 
regent of France, and Henry VI., an infant nine months old, was pro- 
claimed king at Paris and at London, 1 ,422. 

4. Charles VII. recovered France by slow degrees. With the aid 
of a young female enthusiast, the maid of Orleans, whom the credu- 
lity of the age supposed to be inspired by Heaven, he gained several 
important advantages over the English, which the latter inhumanly 
revenged, by burning this heroine as a sorceress. Her death was of 
equal advantage to the French as her life had been. The govern- 
ment of the English was universally detested. After a struggle of 
many years, they were at length, in 1,450, deprived of all that they 
had ever possessed in France, except Calais and Guignes. Charles, 
when he had restored his kingdom to peace, governed it with admi- 
rable wisdom and moderation. 

5. The state of England and of France, the two most polished 
kingdoms in Europe, furnishes a good criterion of the condition of 
society in those ages of which we have been treating. Even in 
the large cities the houses were roofed with thatch, and had no 
chimnies. Glass windows were extremely rare, and the floors 
were covered with straw. In England wine was sold only in the 
shops of the apothecaries. Paper made from linen rags was first 
manufactured in the beginning of the fifteenth century ; and the use 
of linen for shirts was at that time a very rare piece of luxury. 
Yet even before that age the progress of luxury had excited a se- 
rious alarm, for the parliament under Edward III. found it necessary 
to prohibit the use of gold and silver in apparel to all who had net 



MODERN HISTORY 149 

a hradred pounds a year ; and Charles VI. of France ordained, that 
none should presume to entertain with more than two dishes and a 
mess of soup. Before the reign of Edward I. the whole country of 
England was plundered by robbers in great bands, who laid waste 
entire villages ; and some of the household officers of Henry III. 
excused themselves for robbing on the highway, because the king 
allowed them no wages. In 1,303 the abbot and monks of Westmin- 
ster were indicted for robbing the king's exchequer, but acquitted. 
The admirable laws of Edward I., which acquired him the title of 
the English Justinian, give strong testimony of the miserable policy 
and barbarism of the preceding times 



SECTION XXVI. 

DECLINE AND FALL OF THE GREEK EMPIRE. 

1. In the fourteenth century the Turks were proceeding by de- 
grees to encroach on the frontiers of the Greek empire. The sul- 
tan Ottoman had fixed the seat of his government at Byrsa in Bi 
thynia ; and his son Orcan extended his sovereignty to the Propontis, 
and obtained in marriage the daughter of the emperor John Canta- 
cuzenos. About the middle of the century the Turks crossed over 
into Europe, and took Adrianople. The emperor John Palaeologus, 
after meanly soliciting aid from the pope, concluded a humiliating 
treaty with sultan Amurat, and gave his son as a hostage to serve in 
the Turkish army. 

2. Bajazet, the successor of Amurat, compelled the emperor to 
destroy his fort of Galata, and to admit a Turkish judge into the city. 
He prepared now to besiege Constantinople in form, when he was 
forced to change his purpose, and defend himself against the victorious 
Tamerlane. 

3. Timur-bek or Tamerlane, a prince of the Usbek Tartars, and 
descended from Gengiskan, after the conquest of Persia, a great part 
of India and Syria, was invited by the Asiatic princes, enemies ot 
Bajazet, to protect them against the Ottoman power, which threaten- 
ed to overwhelm them. Tamerlane, flattered by this request, im- 
periously summoned the Turk to renounce his conquests ; but the 
message was answered with a proud defiance. The armies met near 
Angoria (Ancyra) m Phrygia, and Bajazet was totally defeated and 
made prisoner by Tamerlane, 1,402. The conqueror made Samar 
cand the capital of his empire, and there received the homage of all 
the princes of the east. Tamerlane was illiterate, but yet was solici- 
tious for the cultivation of literature and science in his dominions. 
Samarcand became for a while the seat of learning, politeness, and 
the arts ; but was destined to relapse, after a short period, into its 
ancient barbarism. 

4. The Turks, after the death of Tamerlane, resumed their pur- 
pose of destroying the empire of the east. Amurat II., a prince of 
singular character, had, on the faith of a solemn treaty with the 
king of Poland, devoted his days to retirement and study. A viola- 
tion of the treaty, by an attack from the Poles on his dominions, made 
him quit his solkude. He engaged and destroyed the Polish army, 
with their perfidious sovereign, and then calmly returned to his re- 
treat, till a similar crisis of public expediency once more brought 
him into active life. He left his dominions to his son Mahomet II. 

N2 



* 



IbO MODERN HISTORY. 

gurnamed the great, who resumed the project for the destruction of 
Constantinople ; but its fall was a second time retarded by the neces- 
sity in which the Turks were unexpectedly placed, of defending 
their own dominions against a powerful invader. 

5. Scanderbeg (John Castriot) prince of Albania, whose territories 
had been seized by Amurat II., was educated by the sultan as his 
own child, and when of age, intrusted with the command of an 
army, which he employed in wresting from Amurat his paternal 
kingdom, 1 ,443. By great talents and military skill he maintained 
his independent sovereignty against the whole force of the Turkish 
empire. 

6. Mahomet II., &m of the philosophic Amurat, a youth of twen- 
ty-one years of age, resumed the plan of extinguishing the empire 
of the Greeks, and making Constantinople the capital of the Otto- 
man power. Its indolent inhabitants made but a feeble preparation 
for defence, and the powers of Europe looked on with supine indif- 
ference. The Turks assailed the city both by land and sea ; and, 
battering down its walls with their cannon, entered sword in hand, 
and massacred all who opposed them. The emperor Constantine 
was slain ; the city surrendered ; and thus was finally extinguished 
the eastern empire of the Romans, A. D. 1,453, which, from the 
building of its capital by Constantine the great, had subsisted 1,123 
years. The imperial edifices were preserved from destruction. 
The churches were converted into mosques; but the exercise of 
their religion was allowed to all the christians. From that time the 
Greek christians have regularly chosen their own patriarch, whom 
the sultan instals; though his authority continues to be disputed by 
the Latin patriarch, who is chosen by the pope. Mahomet the great 
liberally patronized the arts and sciences ; and, to compensate for 
the migration of those learned Greeks, who, on the fall of the empire, 
spread themselves over the countries of Europe, invited both artists 
and men of letters to his capital from other kingdoms. 

7. The taking of Constantinople was followed by the conquest of 
Greece and Epirus. Italy might probably have met a similar fate, but 
by means of their fleet the Venetians opposed the arms of Mahomet 
with considerable success, and even attacked him in Greece. The 
contending powers soon after put an end to hostilities by a treaty. 
Mahomet the great died at the age of fifty-one, 1,481. 



SECTION XXVII. 

GOVERNMENT AND POLICY OF THE TURKISH EMPIRE. 

1 The government of Turkey is an absolute monarchy, tl^e 
whole legislative and executive authority of the state centering in 
the sultan, whose power is subject to no constitutional control. It is, 
however, limited in some degree by religious opinion; the precepts 
of the Coran inculcating certain duties on the sovereign, which it 
would be held an impiety to transgress. It is yet more strongly limit- 
ed by the fear of deposition and assassination. Under these restraints 
the prince can seldom venture on an extreme abuse of power. 

2. The spirit of the people is fitted for a subjection bordering on 
slavery. Concubinage being agreeable to the law of Mahomet, the 
grand seignior, the viziers, are born of female slaves : and there is 
scarcely a subject of the empire of ingemious blood by both parents. 



MODERN HISTORY. 151 

It is a fundamental maxim of the Turkish policy, that all the officers 
of state should be such as the sultan can entirely command, and at 
any time destroy, without danger to himself. 

3. The grand vizier is usually entrusted with the whole functions 
of government, and of course subjected to the sole responsibility for 
all public measures. Subordinate to him are six viziers of the bench, 
who are his counsel and assessors in cases of law, of which he is 
supreme judge. The power of the grand vizier is absolute over all 
the subjects of the empire ; but he cannot put to death a begler- 
beg or a bashaw without the imperial signature ; nor punish a jani- 
zary, unless through the medium of his military commander. The 
beglerbegs are the governors of several provinces, the bashaws of 
a single province. All dignities in the Tukish empire are personal, 
and dependent on the sovereign's pleasure. 

4. The revenues of the grand seignior arise from taxes and cus- 
toms laid on the subject, annual tributes paid by the Tartars, stated 
gifts from the governors of the provinces, and, above all, the confis- 
cations of estates, from the viziers and bashaws downwards to the 
lowest subjects of the empire. The certain and fixed revenues of 
the sovereign are small in comparison of those which are arbitrary. 
His absolute power enables him to execute great projects at a small 
expense. 



SECTION XXVIII. 

FRANCE AND ITALY IN THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH 
CENTURY. 

L Scarcely any vestige of the ancient feudal government now 
remained in France. The onlv subsisting fiefs were Burgundy and 
Brittany. Charles the bold, duke of Burgundy, who sought to in- 
crease his territories by the conquest of Switzerland and Lorraine, 
was defeated by the Swiss, and killed in battle. He left no son, and 
Lewis XI. of France took possession of Burgundy as a male fief, 
1,447. The duke's daughter married Maximilian, son of the empe- 
ror Frederick III., who, by this marriage, acquired the sovereignty 
of the Netherlands. 

2. The acquisition of Burgundy and of Provence, which was be- 
queathed to France by the count de la Marche, increased very great- 
ly the power of the crown. Lewis XL, an odious compound of vice, 
cruelty, and superstition, and a tyrant to his people, was the author 
of many wise and excellent regulations of public policy. The bar- 
barity of the public executions rn his reign is beyond all belief; yet 
the wisdom of his laws, the encouragement which he gave to com- 
merce, the restraints which he imposed on the oppressions of the 
nobility, and the attention which he bestowed in regulating the courts 
of justice, must ever be mentioned to his honour. 

3. The count de la Marche, beside the bequest of Provence to 
Lewis XL, left him his empty title of sovereign of the Two Sicilies. 
Lewis was satisfied with the substantial gift; but his son Charles 
VIII. was dazzled with the shadow. In the beginning of his reign 
he projected the coKquest of Naples, and embarked in the enterprise 
with the most improvident precipitancy. 

4. The dismembered state of Italy was favourable to his views , 



152 MODERN HISTORY. 

The popedom, during the transference of its seat to Avignon, had 
lost many of its territories. Mantua, Modena, and Ferrara, had their 
independent sovereigns. Piedmont belonged to the duke of Savoy; 
Genoa and Milan to the family of Sforza. Florence, under the Medi- 
ci, had attained a very high pitch of splendour. Cosmo, the founder 
ot that family, employed a vast fortune, acquired by commerce, in 
the improvement of his country, in acts of public munificence, and in 
the cultivation of the sciences and elegant arts. His high reputation 
obtained for himself and his posterity the chief authority in his native 
state. Peter de Medici, his great grandson, ruled in Florence at the 
period of the expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy. 

5. The papacy was enjoyed at this time by Alexander VI., a mon 
ster of wickedness. The pope and the duke of Milan, who had invited 
Charles to this enterprise, immediately betrayed him, and joined the 
interest of the king of Naples. Charles, after besieging the pope in 
Rome, and forcing him to submission, devoutly kissed his feet. He 
now marched against Naples, while its timid, prince Alphonso fled to 
Sicily, and his son to the isle of Ischia, after absolving his subjects 
from their allegiance. Charles entered Naples in triumph, and was 
hailed emperor and Augustus : but he lost his new kingdom in almost 
as short a time as he had gained it. A league was formed against 
France between the pope, the emperor Maximilian, Ferdinand of Ar- 
ragon, Isabella of Castile, and the Venetians ; and on the return of 
Charles to France, the troops which he had left to guard his conquest 
were entirely driven out of Italy. 

6. It has been remarked that, from the decisive effect of this con • 
federacy against Charles VIIL, the sovereigns of Europe derived a 
useful lesson of policy, and first adopted the idea of preserving a bal- 
ance of power, by that tacit league which is understood to be always 
subsisting, for the prevention of the inordinate aggrandizement of any 
particular state. 

7. Charles VIIL died at the age of twenty-eight, 1,498 ; and, leav- 
ing no children, the duke of Orleans succeeded to the throne of 
France by the title of Lewis XII. 



SECTION XXIX. 

HISTORY OF SPAIN IN THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH 
CENTURIES. 

1. We go back a little to the middle of the fourteenth century, to 
trace the history of Spain. Peter of Castile, surnamed the cruel, for 
no other reason but that he employed severe means to support his 
just rights, had to contend against a bastard brother, Henry of Trans- 
tamarre, who, with the aid of a French banditti, called Malandrins, 
led by Bertrand du Guesclin, strove to dispossess him of his kingdom. 
Peter was aided by Edward the black prince, then sovereign of Gui- 
enne, who defeated Transtamarre, and took Bertrand prisoner; but, 
on the return of the prince to England, Peter was attacked by his 
former enemies, and entirely defeated. Unable to restrain his rage 
in the first view with Transtamarre, the latter put him to death with 
his own hand, 1,368 ; and thus this usurper secured for himself and 
his posterity the throne of Castile. 

2. The weakness and debauchery of one of his descendants, Hen- 
ry IV. of Castile, occasioned a revolution in the kingdom. The ma- 



MODERN HISTORY. 163 

jority of the nation rose in rebellion; the assembly of the nobles sol- 
emnly deposed their king, and, on the alleged ground of his daughter 
Joanna being a bastard, compelled him to settle the crown on his sis- 
ter Isabella. They next brought about a marriage between Isabella 
and Ferdinand of Arragon, which united the monarchies of Arragon 
and Castile. After a ruinous civil war the revolution was at length 
completed by the death of the deposed sovereign, 1,474, and the re- 
tirement of his daughter Joanna to a monastery, 1,479. 

3. At the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella to the thrones of Ar- 
ragon and Castile, Spain was in a state of great disorder, from the 
lawless depredations of the nobles and their vassals. It was the first 
object of the new sovereigns to repress these enormities, by subject- 
ing the offenders to the utmost rigour of law, enforced by the sword. 
The holy brotherhood was instituted for the discovery and punishment 
of crimes; and the inquisition (Sect. XIX, 6 3), under the pretext of 
extirpating heresy and impiety, afforded the most detestable exam- 
ples of sanguinary persecution. 

4. The Moorish kingdom of Granada, a most splendid monarchy, 
but at that time weakened by faction, and a prey to civil war, offered 
a tempting object to the ambition of Ferdinand and Isabella. Alboa- 
cen was at war with his nephew Aboabdeli, who wanted to dethrone 
him ; and Ferdinand aided Aboabdeli, in the view of ruining both ; 
for no sooner was the latter in possession of the crown by the death 
of Alboacen, than Ferdinand invaded his ally with the whole force of 
Arragon and Castile. Granada was besieged in 1,491, and, after a 
blockade of eight months, surrendered to the victor. Aboabdeli, by 
a mean capitulation, saved his life, and purchased a retreat for his 
countrymen to a mountainous part of the kingdom, where they were 
suffered to enjoy unmolested their laws and their religion. Thus 
ended the dominion of the Moors in Spain, which had subsisted for 
800 years. 

5. Ferdinand, from that period, took the title of king of Spain. In 
1,492 he expelled all the Jews from his dominions, on the absurd 
ground, that they kept in their hands the commerce of the kingdom • 
and Spain thus lost above 150,000 of the most industrious of her in- 
habitants. The exiles spread themselves over the other kingdoms of 
Europe, and were often the victims of a persecution equally inhuman. 
It would appear that Spain has felt, even to the present times, the ef- 
fects of this- folly, in the slow progress of the arts, and that deplora- 
ble inactivity which is the characteristic of her people. Even the 
discovery of the new world, which happened at this very period, and 
which stimulated the spirit of enterprise and industry in all the neigh- 
bouring kingdoms, produced but a feeble impression on that nation, 
which might in a great degree have monopolized its benefits. Of 
that great discovery we shall afterwards treat in a separate section 

SECTION XXX. 

FRANCE, SPAIN, AND ITALY, IN THE END OF THE FIF- 
TEENTH AND BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

1. Lewis XII., eagerly bent on vindicating his right to Naples, 
courted the interest of pope Alexander VI., who promised his aid on 
condition that his natural son, Csesar Borgia, should receive from 
Lewis the duchy of Valentinois, with the king of Navarre's sister in 

20 



164 MODERN HISTORY. 

marriage. Lewis crossed the Alps, and in the space of a few days 
was master of Milan and Genoa. Sforza duke of Milan became his 
prisoner for life. Afraid of the power of Ferdinand of Spain, Lewis 
joined with him in the conquest of Naples, and agreed to divide 
with him the conquered dominions, the pope making no scruple to 
sanction the partition. But the compromise was of no duration; 
for Alexander VI., and Ferdinand, judging it a better policy to share 
Italy between themselves, united their interest to deprive Lewis 
of his new territories. The Spaniards, under Gonsalvo de Cordova, 
defeated the French, under the duke de Nemours and the chevalier 
Bayard ; and Lewis irrecoverably lost his share of the kingdom of 
Naples. 

2. History relates with horror the crimes of pope Alexander V., 
and his son Caesar Borgia; their murders, robberies, profanations, 
incests. They compassed their ends in attaining every object of 
their ambition, but with the universal abhorrence of mankind, and 
finally met with an ample retribution for their crimes. The pope 
died by poison, prepared, as was alleged, by himself for an enemy ; 
and Borgia, stripped of all his possessions by pope Julius II., and sent 
prisoner to Spain by Gonsalvo de Cordova, perished in miserable 
obscurity. 

3. Julius II., the successor of Alexander, projected the formidable 
league of Cambray, 1,508, with the emperor, the kings of France 
and Spain, the duke of Savoy, and king of Hungary, for the destruc- 
tion of Venice, and the division of her territories among the confed- 
erates. They accomplished in part their design, and Venice was on 
the verge of annihilation, when the pope changed his politics. 
Having made the French subservient to his views of plundering the 
Venetians, he now formed a new league with the Venetians, Ger- 
mans, and Spaniards, to expel the French from Italy, and appropriate 
all their conquests. The Swiss and the English oo-operated in this 
design. The French made a brave resistance under their generals 
Bayard and Gaston de Foix, but were finally overpowered. Lewis 
was compelled to evacuate Italy ; Ferdinand, with the aid of Henry 
VIII. of England, stripped him of Navarre, and forced him to pur- 
chase a peace. He died in 1,515. Though unfortunate in his milita- 
ry enterprises, from the superior abilities of his rivals pope Julius 
and Ferdinand, yet he was justly esteemed by his subjects for the 
wisdom and equity of his government. 



SECTION XXXI. 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND FROM THE MIDDLE OF 1 HE 
FIFTEENTH TO THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH 
CENTURY. CIVIL WARS OF YORK AND LANCASTER. 

1. We have seen France recovered from the English in the early 
part of the reign of Henry VI., by the talents and prowess of Charles 
VIII. During the minority of Henry, who was a prince of no capa- 
city, England was embroiled by the factious contention for power 
between his uncles, the duke of Gloucester and the cardinal of Win- 
chester. The latter, to promote his own views of ambition, married 
Henry to Margaret of Anjou, daughter of Regner the titular king of 
Naples, a woman of great meritul endowments and singular heroism 



MODERN HISTORY. 155 

of character, but whose severity in the persecution of her enemies 
alienated a great part of the nobles from their allegiance, and in- 
creased the partisans of a rival claimant of the crown. 

2. This was Richard duke of York, descended by his mother from 
Lionel, second son of Edward IIL, and elder brother to John of Gaunt, 
the progenitor of Henry VI. The white rose distinguished the fac- 
tion of York, and the red rose that of Lancaster. The party of 
York gained much strength from the incapacity of Henry, who was 
subject to periodical madness ; and Richard was appointed lieutenant 
and protector of the kingdom. The authority of Henry was now 
annihilated; but Margaret roused her husband, in an interval of 
sanity, to assert his right; and the nation was divided in arms be- 
tween the rival parties. In the battle of St. Albans 5,000 of the 
Lancastrians were slain, and the king was taken prisoner by the duke 
of York, on the 22d day of May, 1,455. Yet the parliament, while 
it confirmed the authority of the protector, maintained its allegiance 
to the king. 

3. The spirit of the queen reanimated the royal party ; and the 
Lancastrians gained such advantage, that the duke of York fled to 
Ireland, while his cause was secretly maintained in England by Guy 
earl of Warwick. In the battle of Northampton the party of York 
again prevailed, and Henry once more was brought prisoner to Lon- 
don ; while his dauntless queen still nobly exerted herself to retrieve 
his fortunes. York now claimed the crown in open parliament, but 
prevailed only to have his right of succession ascertained on Henry's 
death, to the exclusion of the royal issue. 

4. In the next battle the duke of York was slain, and his party de- 
feated ; but his successor Edward, supported by Warwick, avenged 
this disaster by a signal victory near Touton, in Yorkshire, in 
ivhich 4 3.000 of the Lancastrians were slain. York was proclaimed 
king by trie title of Edward IV., while Margaret, with her dethroned 
husband and infant son, fled into Flanders. 

5. Edward, who owed his crown to Warwick, was ungrateful 
to his benefactor ; and the imprudence and injustice of his conduct 
forced that nobleman at length to take part with ths faction of Lan- 
caster, The consequence was, that, after some struggles, Edward 
was deposed, and Henry VI. once more restored to the throne by 
the hands of Warwick, now known by the epithet of the king-maker. 
But this change was ot no duration. The party of York ultimately 
prevailed. 1 he Lancastrians were defeated in the battle of Barnet, 
and the brave Warwick was slain in the engagement, 1,472. 

6. The intrepid Margaret, whose spirit was superior to every 
change of fortune, prepared to strike a last blow for the crown of 
England in the battle of Tewksbury. The event was fatal to her 
hopes : victory dec Wed for Edward. Margaret was sent prisoner to 
the tower of London ; and the prince her son, a youth of high spirit, 
when brought into the presence of his conqueror, having nobly dared 
to justify his enterprise to the face of his rival, was barbarously mur- 
dered by the dukes of Gloucester and Clarence. Henry VI. was 
soon after privately put to death in the Tower. The heroic Margare t , 
ransomed by Lewis XL, died in France, 1,482. 

7. Edward IV., thus secured on the throne by the death of all his 
competitors, abandoned himself without reserve to the indulgence of 
a vicious and tyrannical nature. He put to death, on the most frivo- 
lous pretence, his brother Clarence. Preparing to gratify his subjects 
by a war with France, he died suddenly in the forty-second year of 



156 MODERN HISTORY. 

his age, poisoned, as was suspected, by his brother Richard duke of 
Gloucester, 1,483. 

8. Edward left two sons, the elder, Edward V., a boy of thirteen 
years of age. Richard duke of Gloucester, named protector in the 
minority of his nephew, hired, by means of Buckingham, a mob of 
the dregs of the populace to declare their wish tor his assumption 
of the crown. He yielded, with affected reluctance, to this voice of 
the nation, and was proclaimed king by the title of Richard III., 1 ,483. 
Edward \ ., after a reign of two months, with his brother the duke 
of York, were, by command of the usurper, smothered while asleep, 
and privately buried in the Tower. 

9. These atrocious crimes found an avenger in Henry earl of 
Richmond, the surviving heir of the house of Lancaster, who, aided 
by Charles VIII. of France, landed in England, and revived the spirits 
of a party almost extinguished in the kingdom. He gave battle to 
Richard in the field of Bosworth, and entirely defeated the army of 
the usurper, who was slain while fighting with the most desperate 
courage, August 22, 1 ,485. The crown which he wore in the engage- 
ment was immediately placed on the head of the conqueror. This 
auspicious day put an end to the civil wars of York and Lancaster. 
Henry VII. united the rights of both families by his marriage with 
Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV. 

10. The reign of Henry VII. was of twenty-four years' duration; 
and under his wise and politic government the kingdom recovered 
all the wounds which it had sustained in those unhappy contests. 
Industry, good order, and perfect subordination, were the fruit of the 
excellent laws passed in this reign ; though the temper of the sove 
reign was despotic, and his avarice, in the latter part of his reign, 
prompted to the most oppressive exactions. 

1 1 . The government of Henry was disturbed by two very singular 
enterprises ; the attempt of Lambert Simnel, the son of a baker, to 
counterfeit the person of the earl of Warwick, son of the duke of 
Clarence; and the similar atte-mpt of Perkin Warbeck, son of a 
Flemish Jew, to counterfeit the duke of York, who had been smother- 
ed in the Tower by Richard III. Both impostors found considerable 
support, but were finally defeated. Simnel, after being crowned 
king of England and Ireland at Dublin, ended his days in a menial 
office of Henry's household. Perkin supported his cause by force 
of arms for five years, and was aided by a great proportion of the 
English nobility. Overpowered at length he surrendered to Henry, 
who condemned him to perpetual imprisonment ; but his ambitious 
spirit meditated a new insurrection, and he was nut to death as a 
traitor. Henry VII. died in 1,509, in the fifty-third year of his age, 
and the twenty-fourth of his reign. 



SECTION XXXII. 

HISTORY OF SCOTLAND FROM THE MIDDLE OF THE 
FOURTEENTH CENTURY TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF 
JAMES V 

1. In no country of Europe had the feudal aristocracy attained to 
a greater height than in Scotland. The power of the greater 
barons, while it rendered them independent, and often the rivals 



MODERN HISTORY. 

of their sovereign, was a perpetual source of turbulence and dis 
order in the kingdom. It was therefore a constant policy of the 
Vitish kings toliumbie the nobles, and break their factious com- 
binations. Robert I. attempted to retrench the vast territorial pos- 
sessions of his barons, by requiring every landholder to produce the 
titles of his estate; but was resolutely answered, that the sword was 
(heir charter of possession. 

2. On the death of Robert in 1,329, and during the minority of 
iiis son David, Edward Baliol, the son of John formerly king o! 
Scotland, with the aid of Edward III. of England, and of many of 
the factious barons, invaded the kingdom, and was crowned at Scone, 
while the young David was conveyed for security to France. The 
mean dependence of Baliol on the English monarch deprived him of 
the affections of the people. Robert, the steward of Scotland, Ran- 
dolph, and Douglas, supported the Brucian interest, and, assisted by 
the French, restored David to his throne. This prince was destined 
to sustain many reverses of fortune ; for, in a subsequent invasion ol 
the English territory by the Scots, he was taken prisoner in the bat- 
tle of Durham, and conveyed to London. He remained eleven 
years in captivity, and witnessed a similar fate of a brother monarch, 
John king of France, taken prisoner by the black prince in the battle 
of Poictiers. David was ransomed by his subjects, and restored to 
his kingdom in 1.357 ; and ended a turbulent reign in 1,370-1. The 
crown passed at his demise to his nephew Robert, the high steward 
of Scotland, in virtue of a destination made by Robert 1. 

3. The reign of Robert II., which was of twenty years'' duration 
was spent in a series of hostilities between the Scots and English 
productive of no material consequence to either kingdom. "The 
weak and indolent disposition of his successor Robert III., who found 
himself unequal to the contest with his factious nobles, prompted 
him to resign the government to his brother, the duke of Albany. 
This ambitious man formed the design of usurping the throne by the 
murder of his nephews, the sons of Robert. The elder, Rothsay, a 
prince of high spirit, was imprisoned on pretence of treasonable de- 
signs, and starved to death. The younger, James, escaped a similar 
fate which was intended for him; but on his passage to France, 
whither he was sent for safety by his father, he was taken by an Eng- 
lish ship of war, and brought prisoner to London. The weak Robert 
sunk under these misfortunes, and died, 1,405, after a reign of fifteen 
years. 

4. James I., a prince of great natural endowments, profited by a 
captivity of eighteen years at the court of England, in adorning" his 
mind with every valuable accomplishment. At his return to his 
kingdom, which in his absence had been weakly governed by the 
regent Albany, and suffered under all the disorders of anarchy, he 
bent his whole attention to the improvement and civilization of his 
people, by the enactment of many excellent laws, enforced with a 
resolute authority. The tactions of the nobles, their dangerous com- 
binations, and their domineering tyranny over their dependents, the 
great sources of the people's miseries, were firmly restrained, and 
most severely punished. But these wholesome innovations, while 
they procured to James the affections of the nation at large, excited 
the odium of the nobility, and gave birth to a conspiracy, beaded 
by the earl of Athole, the king's uncle, which terminated in the 
murder of this excellent prince, in the 44th year of his age, A. D. 
1,437. 

O 



158 M0J3ERJN HISTORY. 

5. His son James II. inherited a considerable portion of the talents 
of his father; and, in the like purpose of restraining the inordinate 
power of his nobles, pursued the same maxims of government, which 
an impetuous temper prompted him, in some instances, to carry to 
the most blameable excess. The earl of Douglas, trusting to a pow- 
erful vassalage, had assumed an authority above the laws, and a state 
and splendour rival to- those of his sovereign. He was seized, and 
beheaded without accusation or trial. His successor imprudently 
running the same career, and boldly justifying, in a conference, his 
rebellious practices, was put to death by the king's own hand. Thus 
were the factions of the nobles quelled by a barbarous rigour of 
authority. To his people James was beneficent and humane, and 
his laws contributed materially to their civilization and prosperity. 
He was killed, in the 30th yeai of his age, by the bursting of a can- 
non, in besieging the castle of Roxburgh, A. D. 1,460. 

6. His son James III., without the talents of his predecessors, 
affected to tread in the same steps. To humble his nobles he be- 
stowed his confidence on mean favourites, an insult which the for- 
mer avenged by rebellion. His brothers Albany and Mar, aided 
by Edward IV. of England, attempted a revolution in the kingdom, 
which was frustrated only by the death of Edward. In a second re- 
bellion the confederate nobles forced the prince of Rothsay, eldest son 
of James, to appear in arms against his father. In an engagement 
near Bannockburn the rebels were successful, and the king was slain 
in the 35th near of his age, 1,488. 

7. James IV., a great and most accomplished prince, whose talents 
were equalled by his virtues, while his measures of government were 
dictated by a true spirit of patriotism, won by a well-placed confi- 
dence the affections of his nobility. In his marriage with Margaret, 
the daughter of Henry VII. of England, both sovereigns wisely 
sought a bond of amitv between the kingdoms ; but this purpose was 
frustrated in the succeeding reign of Henry VIII. The high spirit of 
the rival monarchs was easily inflamed by trifling causes of offence ; 
and France, then at war with England, courted the aid of her an- 
cient ally. James invaded England with a powerful army, which he 
wished to lead to immediate action; but the prudent delays of Surrey, 
the English general, wasted and weakened his force. In the fatal 
battle of Flodden the Scots were defeated with prodigious slaughter. 
The gallant James perished in the fight, and with him almost the 
whole of the Scottish nobles, A. D. 1,513. 

8. Under the long minority of his son James V., an infant at the 
time of his father's death, the kingdom was feebly ruled by his uncle 
Albany. The aristocracy began to resume its ancient spirit of inde- 
pendence, which was ill-brooked by a prince of a proud and un- 
controlable mind, who felt the keenest jealousy of a high preroga- 
tive. With a systematic policy he employed the church to abuse the 
nobility, conferring all the offices of state on able ecclesiastics. The 
cardinal Beaton co-operated with great zeal in the designs of his 
master, and under him ruled the kingdom. 

9. Henry VIII., embroiled with the papacy, sought an alliance 
with the king of Scots; but the ecclesiastical counsellors of the lat- 
ter defeated this beneficial purpose. A war was thus provoked, and 
James was reluctantly compelled to court those nobles whom it had 
hitherto been his darling object to humiliate. They now determined 
on a disgraceful revenge. In an attack on the Scottish border the 
English were repelled, and an opportunity offered to the Scots of 



MODERJN HISTORY. 159 

cutting off their retreat. The king gave his orders to that end, but 
his barons obstinately refused to advance beyond the frontier. One 
measure more was wanting to drive their sovereign to despair. In a 
subsequent engagement with the English 10,000 of the Scots deliber- 
ately surrendered themselves prisoners to 500 of the enemy. The 
high spirit of James sunk under his contending passions, and he died oi 
a broken heart in the 33d year of his age, A. P. 1,542, a few days 
after the birth of a daughter, yet more unfortunate than her father, 
Mary queen of Scots. 

SECTION XXX111. 

OF THE ANCIENT CONSTITUTION OF THE SCOTTISH GOVERN- 
MENT. 

1. We have seen that it was a constant policy of the Scottish kings 
to abase the power of their nobles ; and that the struggle for power 
was the source of much misery and bloodshed. But this policy was 
necessary, from the dangerous ambition and lawless tyranny of those 
nobles, who frequently aimed at overturning the throne, and exercis- 
ed the severest oppression on all their dependents. The interests, 
therefore, of the people, no less than the security of the prince, de- 
manded tne repression of this overweening and destructive power. 
The aristocracy was, however, preserved, no less by its own strength 
than by the concurrence of circumstances, and chiefly by the violent 
and unhappy fate of the sovereigns. Meantime, though the meas- 
ures which the kings pursued were not successful, yet their conse- 
quences were beneficial. They restrained, if they did not destroy, 
the spirit of feudal oppression, and gave birth to order, wise laws, 
and a more tranquil administration of government. 

2. The legislative power, though nominally resident in the parlia- 
ment, was virtually in the king, who, by his influence, entirely con- 
troled its proceedings. The parliament consisted of three estates, 
the nobles, the dignified clergy, and the less barons, who were the 
representatives of the towns and shires.^ The disposal of benefices, 
gave the crown the entire command of the churchmen, who were 
equal to the nobles in number ; and at least a majority of the com- 
mons were the dependents of the sovereign. A committee, termed 
the lords of the articles, prepared every^ measure that was to come 
before the parliament. r>y the mode of its election this committee 
was in effect nominated by "the king. It is to the credit of the Scot- 
tish princes, that there are few instances of their abusing an authority 
so extensive as that which they constitutionally enjoyed. 

3. The king had anciently the supreme jurisdiction in all causes, 
civil and criminal, which he generally exercised through the medium 
of his privy council; but in 1,425 James 1. instituted the court of ses- 
sions, consisting of the chancellor and certain judges chosen from the 
three estates. This court was new-modelled by James V., and its 
jurisdiction limited to civil causes, the cognizance of crimes being 
committed to the justiciary. The chancellor was the highest officer 
of the crown, and president of the parliament. To the chamberlain 
belonged the care of the finances and the public police ; to the high 
steward the charge of the king's household; the constable regulated 
all matters of military arrangement; and the marshal was the king's 
lieutenant, and master of the horse. 



160 MODERN HISTORY. 

4. The revenue of the sovereign consisted of his domain, which 
was extensive, of the feudal casualties and forfeitures, the profits of 
the wardships of his vassals, the rents of vacant benefices, the pecu- 
niary tines for offences, and the aids or presents occasionally given 
by the subject ; a revenue at all times sufficient for the purposes of 
government, and the support of the dignity of the crown. 

5. The political principles which regulated the conduct of the Scots 
toward other nations were obvious and simple. It had ever been an 
object of ambition to England to acquire the sovereignty of Scotland, 
which was constantly on its guard against this design of its more potent 
neighbour. It was the wisest policy for Scotland to attach itself to 
France, the natural enemy of England ; an alliance reciprocally court- 
ed from similar motives. In those days this attachment was justly 
deemed patriotic; while the Scots, who were the partisans of Eng- 
land* were with equal justice regarded as traitors to their country. 
In the period of which we now treat, it was a settled policy of the 
English sovereigns to have a secret faction in their pay in Scotland, 
for the purpose of dividing and thus enslaving the nation ; and to this 
source all the subsequent disorders of the latter kingdom are to be 
attributed. 



SECTION XXXIV. 

A VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 
IN EUROPE, FROM THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS TO THE 
END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 

1. The first restorers of learning in Europe were the Arabians, 
who, in the course of their Asiatic conquests, becoming acquainted 
with some of the ancient Greek authors, discovered and justly appre- 
ciated the knowledge and improvement to be derived from them. 
The caliphs procured from the eastern emperors copies of the an- 
cient manuscripts, and had them carefully translated into Arabic : es- 
teeming principally those which treated of mathematics, physics, and 
metaphysics. They disseminated their knowledge in the course ot 
their conquests, and founded schools and colleges in all the countries 
which they subdued. 

2. The western kingdoms of Europe became first acquainted with 
the learning of the ancients through the medium of those Arabian 
translations. Charlemagne caused Latin translations to be made from 
the Arabian, and founded, after the example of the caliphs, the uni- 
versities of Bononia, Pavia, Osnaburg, and Paris. Alfred wth a simi- 
lar spirit, and by similar means, introduced a taste for literature in 
England ; but the subsequent disorders of the kingdom replunged it 
into barbarism. The Normans, however, brought from the continent 
some tincture of ancient learning, which was kept alive in the monas- 
teries, where the monks were meritoriously employed in transcrib- 
ing a few of the ancient authors, along with the legendary lives of 
the saints. 

3. In this dawn of literature in England appeared Henry of Hunting 
ton and Geoffrey of Monmouth, names distinguished in the earliest 
annals of poetry and romance ; John of Salisbury, a moralist ; Wil- 
liam of Malmesbury, annalist of the history of England before the 
reign of Stephen ; Giraldus Cambrensis, known in the fields of hist > 



MODERN HISTORY. 1G1 

ry, theology, and poetry ; Joseph of Exeter, author of two Latin epic 
poems on the Troian war, and the war of Antioch, or the crusade, 
which are read with pleasure even in the present day. 

4. But this era of a good taste in letters was of short duration. 
Ine taste for classical composition and historical information yielded 
to the barbarous subtleties of scholastic divinity taught by Lombard 
and Abelard, and to the abstruse doctrines of the Roman law, which 
began to engage the general attention from the recent discovery of 
the pandects at Amalphi, 1,137. The amusements of the vulgar 
in those periods were metrical and prose romances, unintelligible 
prophecies, and fables of giants and enchanters. 

5. In the middle of the thirteenth century appeared a distinguish- 
ed genius, Roger Bacon, an English friar, whose comprehensive mind 
was failed with all the stores of ancient learning ; who possessed a 
discriminating judgment to separate the precious ore from the dross, 
and a power ol invention fitted to advance in every science which was 
the object of his study. He saw the insufficiency of the school phi- 
losophy, and first recommended the prosecution of knowledge by ex- 
periment and the observation of nature. He made discoveries of 
importance in astronomy, optics, chemistry, medicine, and mechanics. 
He retormed the kalendar, discovered the construction cf telescopic 
g asses forgotten after his time, and revived by Galileo, and has left a 

?lam intimation of his knowledge of the composition of gun-powder, 
et this superior genius believed in the possibility of discovering an 
elixir for the prolongation of life, in the transmutation of metals into 
gold, and in judicial astrology. 

6. A general taste prevailed for poetical composition in the twelfth 
and thirteenth centuries. The troubadours of Provence wrote son- 
nets, madrigals, and satirical ballads ; and excelled in extempore dia- 
logues on the subject of love, which they treated in a metaphysical 
and Platonic strain. They contended for the prize of poetry at sol- 
emn meetings, where princes, nobles, and the most illustrious ladies 
attended to decide between the rival bards ; and some of those prin- 
ces, as Richard 1. of England, Frederick I. emperor of Germany, are 
celebrated as troubadours of eminence. Many fragments vet remain 
ot their compositions. 

7. The transference of the papal seat to Avignon, in the fourteenth 
century, familiarized the Italian poets with the songs of the trouba- 
dours, and gave a tincture of the Provencal style to their compo- 
sitions, which is very observable in the poetry of Petrarch and of 
Dante. The Divina Comedia of Dante first introduced the machine- 
ry ol angels and devils in the room of the pagan mythology, and is a 
work containing many examples of the terrible sublime. The Son- 
nets and Canzoni of Petrarch are highly tender and pathetic, though 
vitiated with a quaintness and conceit, which is a prevalent feature 
of the Italian poetry. The Decamero'ne of Boccacio, a work of the 
same age, is a master-piece for invention, ingenious narrative, and 
acquaintance with human nature. These authors have fixed the 
standard of the Italian language. 

8. Contemporary with them, and of rival merit, was the English 
Chaucer, who displays all the talents of Boccacio, through the me- 
dium of excellent poetry. The works of Chaucer discover an exten- 
sive knowledge of the sciences, an acquaintance both with ancient 
and modern learning, particularly the literature of France and Italy, 
and, above all, a most acute discernment of life and manners. 

9. Of similar character are the poems of Gower, but of a graver 

2 r 21 



162 MODERN HISTORY. 

cast, and a more chastened morality. Equal co these eminent men 
in every species of literary merit was the accomplished James I. of 
Scotland, of which his remaining writings bear convincing testimony. 
The doubtful Rowley of Bristol is said to have adorned the fifteenth 
century. 

10. Spain at this period began to emerge from ignorance and bar- 
barism, and to produce a few of those works which are enumerated 
with approbation in the whimsical but judicious criticism of Cervau 
tes. yjon Quixote, b. 1, c. 6.) 

11. Though poetry attained in those ages a considerable degree 
of splendour, yet there was little advancement in general literature 
and science. History was disgraced by the intermixture of miracle 
and fable ; yet we find much curious information in the writings 
of Matthew of Westminster, of Walsingham, Everard, Duysburg, and 
the Chronicles of Froissart and Monstrelet. Philip de Commine* 
happily describes the reigns of Lewis XI. and Charles VIII. of 
France. Villani and Platina are valuable recorders of the affairs of 
Italy. 

12. A taste for classical learning in the fifteenth century led to the 
discovery of many of the ancient authors. Poggio discovered the 
writings of Quintilian and several of the compositions of Cicero, 
which stimulated to farther research, and to the recovery of many 
valuable remains of Greek and Roman literature. But this taste was 
not generally diffused. France and England were extremely barba- 
rous. The library at Oxford contained only 600 volumes, and there 
were but four classics in the royal library at Paris. But a brighter 
period was approaching. On the fall of the eastern empire, in the 
end of the fifteenth century, the dispersion of the Greeks diffused a 
taste for polite literature over all the west of Europe. A succession 
of popes, endowed with a liberal and enlightened spirit, gave every 
encouragement to learning and the sciences; and, above all, the 
noble discovery of the art of printing contributed to their rapid ad- 
vancement and dissemination, and gave a certain assurance of the 
perpetuation of every valuable art, and the progressive improvement 
of human knowledge. 

13. The rise of dramatic composition among the moderns is to be 
traced to the absurd and ludicrous representation, in the churches, 
of the scripture histories, called in England mysteries, miracles, ana 
moralities. These were first exhibited in the twelfth century, and 
continued to the sixteenth, when they were prohibited by law in 
England. Of these we have amusing specimens in Warton's His- 
tory of English Poetry. Profane dnwnas were substituted in their 
place ; and a mixture of the sacred and profane appears to have 
been known in France as early as 1,300. In Spain the farcical mys- 
teries keep their ground to the present day, and no regular compo- 
sition for the stage was known till the end of the sixteenth century. 
The Italians are allowed by their own writers to have borrowed 
their theatre from the French and English. 

See Rett's Elements of General Knowledge, vol. L 



MODERN HISTORY. 168 



SECTION XXXV. 



VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF COMMERCE IN EUROPE BEFORE 
THE PORTUGUESE DISCOVERIES. 

1. Before we give an account of the discoveries of the Portu- 
guese in the fifteenth century, in exploring a new route to India, we 
shall present a short view of the progress of commerce in Europe 
down to that period. 

The boldest naval enterprise of the ancients was the Periplus ol 
Hanno, who sailed from Carthage to the coast of Guinea, within 
four or five degrees of the equator, A. C. 570. The ancients did 
not know that Africa was almost circumnavigable. They had a very 
limited knowledge of the habitable earth. They believed that both 
the torrid and frigid zones were uninhabitable ; and they were very 
imperfectly acquainted with a great part of Europe, Asia, and Af- 
rica. Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Poland, and the greater part of 
Russia, were unknown to them. In Ptolemy's description of the 
globe, the 63d degree of latitude is the limit of the earth to the 
north, and the equator to the south. 

2. Britain was circumnavigated in the time of Domitian. The 
Romans frequented it for the purposes of commerce ; and Tacitus 
mentions London as a celebrated resort of merchants. The com- 
merce of the ancients was, however, chiefly confined to the Mediter- 
ranean. In the flourishing periods of the eastern empire the mer- 
chandise of India was imported from Alexandria ; but, after the con- 
quest of Egypt by the Arabians, it was carried up the Indus, and 
tnence by land to the Oxus, which then ran directly into the Caspian 
sea; thence it was brought up the Wolga, and again carried over land 
to the Don, whence it descended into the Euxine. 

3. After the fall of the western empire commerce was long at a 
stand in Europe. When Attila was ravaging Italy the Veneti took 
refuge in the small islands at the northern extremity of the Adriatic, 
and there founded Venice, A. D. 452, which began very early to 
equip small fleets, and trade to the coasts of Egypt and the Levant, 
for spices and other merchandise of Arabia and India. Genoa, Flor- 
ence, and Pisa, imitated this example, and began to acquire consider- 
able wealth ; but Venice retained her superiority over these riva 
states, and gained considerable territory on the opposite coast of Illyr- 
icum and Dalmatia. 

4. The maritime cities of Italy profited by the crusades, in furnish- 
ing the armies with supplies, and bringing home the produce of the 
east. The Italian merchants established manufactures similar to 
those of Constantinople. Rogero king of Sicily brought artisans 
from Athens, and established a silk manufacture at Palermo in 1,130. 
The sugar cane was planted in Sicily in the twelfth century, and 
thence carried to Madeira, and finally made its way to the West 
Indies. 

5. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Italians were the 
only commercial people of Europe. Venice set the first example 
of a national bank in 1,157, which has maintained its credit to the 
present times. The only trade of France, Spain, and Germany, at 
this time, was carried on at stated fairs and markets, to which traders 
resorted from all quarters, paying a tax to the sovereigns or the lords 



164 MODERN HISTORY. 

of the territory. The more enterprising bought a privilege oi ex 
emption, by paying at once a large sum, and were thence called fret 
traders. 

6. In the middle ages the Italian merchants, usually called Lom- 
bards, were the factors of all the European nations, and were en- 
ticed, by privileges granted by the sovereigns, to settle in France, 
Spain, Germany, and England. They were not only traders in com 
modities, but bankers, or money dealers. In this last business they 
found a severe restraint from the canon law prohibiting the taking 
of interest ; and hence, from the necessary privacy of their bargains, 
there were no bounds to exorbitant usury. The Jews, too, who 
were the chief dealers in money, brought disrepute on the trade of 
banking, and frequently suffered, on that account, the most intoler- 
able persecution and confiscation of their fortunes. To guard against 
these injuries they invented bills of exchange. 

7. The Lombard merchants excited a spirit of commerce, and 
gave birth to manufactures, which were generally encouraged by 
the sovereigns in the different kingdoms of Europe. Among the 
chief encouragements was the institution of corporations or monop- 
olies, the earliest of which are traced up to the eleventh century ; 
a policy beneficial, and perhaps necessary, where the spirit of indus- 
try is low, and manufactures are in their infancy ; but of hurtful con- 
sequence where trade and manufactures are flourishing. 

8. Commerce began to spread toward the north of Europe about 
the end of the twelfth century. The sea-ports on the Baltic traded 
with France and Britain, and with the Mediterranean by the staple 
of the isle of Oleron, near the mouth of the Garonne, then possessed 
by the English. The commercial laws of Oleron and Wisbuy (on 
the Baltic) regulated for many ages the trade of Europe. To pro- 
tect their trade from piracy, Lubec, Hamburgh, and most of the north- 
ern sea-ports, joined in a confederacy, under certain general regula- 
tions, termed the league of the hojnse-towns ; a union so beneficial in 
its nature, and so formidable in point of strength, that its alliance was 
courted by the predominant powers of Europe. 

9. For the trade of the hanse-towns with the southern kingdoms, 
Bruges, on the coast of Flanders, was found a convenient entrepot, 
and thither the Mediterranean merchants brought the commodities 
of India and the Levant to exchange with the produce and manufac- 
tures of the north. The Flemings now began to encourage trade 
and manufactures, which thence spread to the Brabanters : but their 
growth being checked by the impolitic sovereigns of those prov- 
inces, they found a more favourable field in England, which was des- 
tined to derive from them the great source of its national opulence. 

10. The Britons had very early seen the importance of commerce. 
Bede relates that London was frequented by foreigners for the pur- 
pose of trade in 614; and William of Malmesbury speaks of it, in 
1,041, as a most populous and wealthy city. The cinque ports. 
Dover, Hastings, Hythe, Ronmey, and Sandwich, obtained in that age 
their privileges and immunities, on condition of furnishing each five 
ships of war. These ports are now eight in number, and send their 
members to parliament. 

11. The woolien manufacture of England was considerable in the 
twelfth century. Henry II. incorporated the weavers of London, 
and gave them various privileges. By a law passed in his reign, all 
cloth made of foreign wool was condemned to be burnt. Scotland 
at this time seems to have possessed a considerable source of wealth, 



MODERN HISTORY. 165 

as is evident irom the payment of the ransom of William the Hon, 
which was 10,000 merks, equal to 100,0001. sterling of present 
money. The English found it difficult to raise double that sum for the 
ransom of Richard I., and the Scots contributed a proportion of it. 
The English sovereigns at first drew a considerable revenue from 
the custom on wool exported to be manufactured abroad; but becom- 
ing soon sensible of the benefit of encouraging its home manufacture, 
they invited, for that purpose, the foreign artisans and merchants to 
reside in England, and gave them valuable immunities. Edward III. 
was peculiarly attentive to trade and manufactures, as appears by the 
laws passed in his reign ; and he was bountiful in the encouragement 
of foreign artisans. The succeeding reigns were not so favourable. 
During the civil wars of York and Lancaster the spirit of trade and 
manufactures greatly declined; nor did they begin to revive and 
flourish till the accession of Henry VII. In that interval of their de- 
cay in England commerce and the arts were encouraged in Scotland 
by James I. and his successors, as much as the comparatively rude 
and turbulent state of the, kingdom would permit. The herring fish- 
ery then began to be vigorously promoted ; and the duties laid on 
the exportation of woollen cloth show that this manufacture was then 
considerable among the Scots. Glasgow began to acquire wealth 
by the fisheries in 1,420, but had little or no foreign trade till after 
the discovery of America and the West Indies. 

12. Henry VII. gave the most liberal encouragement to trade and 
manufactures, particularly the woollen, by inviting foreign artisans, 
and establishing them at Leeds, Wakefield, Halifax, and other places. 
The navigation acts were passed in his reign, and commercial treaties 
formed with the continental kingdoms for the protection of the 
merchant-shipping. Such was the state of commerce at tne time 
when the Portuguese made those great discoveries which open- 
ed a new route to India, and gave a circulation to their wealth over 
most of the nations of Europe. 



SECTION XXXVI. 

DISCOVERIES OF THE PORTUGUESE IN THE FIFTEENTH 
CENTURY, AND THEIR EFFECTS ON THE COMMERCE OF 
EUROPE. 

1. The polarity of the magnet had been known in Europe as 
early as the thirteenth century ; but the compass was not used in 
sailing till the middle of the fourteenth ; and another century had 
elapsed from that period, while yet the European manners scarcely 
ventured out of the sight of their coasts. The eastern ocean was 
little known ; and the Atlantic was supposed to be a boundless ex- 
panse of sea, extending probably to the eastern shores of Asia. In 
the belief that the torrid zone was uninhabitable, a promontory on 
the African coast, in the 29th degree of north latitude, was termed 
Cape Non, as forming an impassable limit. 

2. In the beginning of the fifteenth century John king of Por= 
tugal sent a few vessels to explore the African coast; and these 
doubling Cape Non proceeded to Cape Boyador, within two de- 
grees of the northern tropic. Prince Henry, the son of John, equip- 
ped a single ship, which, being driven out to sea, landed on the island 



166 MODERN HISTORY. 

of Porto Santo. This involuntary experiment emboldened tho 
mariners to abandon their timid mode of coasting, and launch into the 
open sea. In 1.420 the Portuguese discovered Madeira, where they 
established a colony, and planted the Cyprus vine, and the sugar cane. 

3. The spirit of enterprise being thus awakened, prince Henry 
obtained from Eugene IV. a bull granting to the Portuguese the 
property of all the countries which they might discover between 
Cape Non and India. Under John II. oi' Portugal the Cape Verd 
islands were discovered and colonized; and the fleets, advancing to 
the coast of Guinea, brought home gold dust, gums, and ivory. Hav- 
ing passed the equator, the Portuguese entered a new hemisphere, 
and boldly proceeded to the extremity of the continent. In 1,479 a 
fleet under Vasco de Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and, 
sailing onwards beyond the mouths of the Arabian and Persian gulfs, 
arrived at Calicut, on the. Malabar coast, after a voyage of 1,500 
leagues, performed in thirteen months. 

4. De Gama entered into an alliance with the rajah of Calicut, a 
tributary of the Mogul empire, and returned to Lisbon with speci- 
mens of the wealth and produce of the country. A succeeding fleet 
formed settlements, and, vanquishing the opposition of the native 
princes, soon achieved the conquest of all the coast of Malabar. 
The city of Goa, taken by storm, became the residence of a Portu- 
guese viceroy and the capital of their Indian settlements. 

5. The Venetians, who had hitherto engrossed the Indian trade 
by Alexandria, now lost it for ever. After an ineffectual project of 
cutting through the isthmus of Suez, they attempted to intercept the 
Portuguese by their fleets stationed at the mouth of the Red sea and 
Persian gulf, but were every where encountered by a superior 
force. The Portuguese made settlements in both the gulfs, ano 
vigDrously prosecuted their conquests on the Indian coast and sea. 
The rich island of Ceylon, the kingdoms of Pegu, Siam, and Malac- 
ca, were speedily subdued, and a settlement established in Bengal. 
They proceeded onward to China, hitherto scarcely known to the Eu- 
ropeans but by the account of a single Venetian traveller, Marco Paolo, 
in the thirteenth century ; and they obtained the emperor's permis 
sion to form a settlement at Macao, thus opening a commerce with 
that immense empire, and the neighbouring islands of Japan. In the 
space of fifty years the Portuguese were masters of the whole trade 
of the Indian ocean, and sovereigns of a large extent of Asiatic 
territory. 

6. These discoveries produced a wonderful effect on the com 
merce of Europe. The produce of the spice islands was computed 
to be worth annually 200,000 ducats to Lisbon, The Venetians, 
after every effort to destroy the trade of the Portuguese, offere J to 
become sole purchasers of all the spice brought to Europe, but were 
refused. Commercial industry was roused in every quarter, and 
manufactures made a rapid progress. Lyons, Tours, Abbeville, Mar- 
seilles, Bordeaux, acquired immense wealth. Antwerp and Amster- 
dam became the great marts of the north. The former owed itj 
splendour to the decline of Bruges, which was ruined by civil c )m- 
motions ; and the Portuguese made Antwerp their entrepot for tha 
supply of the northern kingdoms. It continued highly flourishing 
till the revolt of the Netherlands, in the end of the sixteenth cen turv, 
when it was taken by the Spaniards, and its port destroyed by i flock- 
ing up the Scheld. 

7. The trade of Holland rose on the fall of Antwerp. Amsterdam 



MODERN HISTORY. 167 

became considerable after the decline of the hanseatic confederacy 
in 1,428, but rose into splendour and high commercial opulence from 
I he destruction of Antwerp. The United Provinces, dependent on 
industry alone for their support, became a model of commercial ac- 
tivity to all nations. 

8. Britain felt the effect of that general stimulus which the Por- 
tuguese discoveries gave to the trade of Europe ; but other causes 
had a more sensible operation to that end in England. The reforma- 
tion, by suppressing the convents, and restoring many thousands to 
society, and the cutting off the papal exactions, which drained the 
kingdom of its wealth, the politic laws passed in the reign of Henry 
V r lll., and the active patriotism of Elizabeth, were vigorous incentives 
to national industry. 

9. From the time of Henry V r lII. to the present, the commerce 
and manufactures of England have been uniformly progressive. 
The rental of England in lands and houses did not then exceed five 
millions per annum ; it is now above eighteen millions. The unman- 
ufactured wool of one years growth is supposed to be worth two 
millions ; when manufactured, as it now is, by British hands, it is 
worth eight millions. Above a million and a half of hands are em- 
ployed in that manufacture alone ; half a million are employed in 
the manufactures of iron, steel, copper, brass, lead ; the linen man- 
ufactures of England, Scotland, and Ireland, occupy nearly a million ; 
and a number not much inferior is employed in the fisheries. It is 
presumable, on the whole, that nearly a fourth of the population oi tin; 
united kingdoms is actually employed in commerce and manufactures.. 

10. The vast increase of the national wealth of Britain appear* 
chiefly, 1, from the increase of population, which is supposed to 
be nearly five to one (at least in the large cities) since the reign 
of Elizabeth ; 2, from the great addition made to the cultivated 
lands of the kingdom, and the high improvement of agriculture 
since that period, whence more than quadruple the quantity of food 
is produced ; 3, from the increase of the commercial shipping, at 
least sixfold within the same time ; 4, from the comparative low rate 
of interest, which is demonstrative of the increase of wealth. The 
consequences of the diffusion of the commercial spirit are most im- 
portant to the national welfare. From general industry arises afflu- 
ence, joined to a spirit of independence ; and on this spirit rests the 
freedom of the British constitution, and all the blessings which are 
enjoyed under its protection. 



SECTION XXXVII. 

GERMANY AND FRANCE IN THE REIGNS OF CHARLES V. 
AND FRANCIS I. 

1. We resume the detail of the history of Europe at the beginning 
of the sixteenth century, previously remarking, that the Germanic 
empire continued for above fifty years in a state of languid tranquilli- 
ty, from the time of Albert II., the successor of Sigismund, during the 
long reign of Frederick III., whose son Maximilian acquired, by his 
marriage with Mary, duchess of Burgundy, the sovereignty of the 
Netherlands. Maximilian was elected Emperor in 1,493; and, by 
establishing a perpetual peace between the separate Germanic states, 
Said the foundation of the subsequent grandeur of the empire. 



168 MODERN HISTORY. 

2. Philip archduke of Austria, son of Maximilian, married Jane, the 
daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella ; and of that marriage the eldest 
son was Charles V., who succeeded to the throne of Spain in 1,516, 
and, on the death of his grandfather Maximilian, preferred his claim 
o the vacant imperial throne. He had for his competitor Francis I. 
of France, who had distinguished himself by the conquest of the Mil- 
anese, and the adjustment of the contending interests of the Italian 
states. The German electors, afraid of the exorbitant power both oi 
Charles and of Francis, would have rejected both, and conferred the 
imperial crown on Frederick duke of Saxony ; but this extraordinary 
man declined the proffered dignity, and his council determined the 
election in favour of Charles of Austria, 1,519. 

3. Charles V. and Francis I. were now declared enemies, and their 
mutual claims on each other's dominions were the subject of perpet- 
ual hostility. The emperor claimed Artois as part of the Nether- 
lands. Francis prepared to make good his right to the Two Sicilies. 
Charles had to defend Milan, and to support his title to Navarre, 
which had been wrested from France by his grandfather Ferdinand. 
Henry VIII. of England was courted by the rival monarchs, as the 
weight of England was sufficient to turn the scale, where the power 
of each was nearly balanced. 

4. The first hostile attack was made by Francis on the kingdom of 
Navarre, which he won and lost in the course of a few months. The 
emperor attacked Picardy, and his troops at the same time drove the 
French out o»f the Milanese. On the death of Leo X., Charles placed 
cardinal Adrian on the papal throne, 1,521 ; and by the promise of 
elevating Wolsey, the minister of Henry VIII., to that dignity, on the 
death of Adrian, gained the alliance of the English monarch in his war 
against France. 

5. At this critical time Francis imprudently quarrelled with his 
best general, the constable of Bourbon, who, in revenge, deserted 
the emperor, and was by him invested with the chief command of his 
armies. The imperial generals were far superior in abilities to their 
opponents. The French were defeated at Biagrassa, and Charles 
was carrying every thing before him in Italy, wfien Francis entered 
the Milanese, and retook the capital ; but, in the subsequent battle of 
Pavia, his troops were entirely defeated, and the French monarch 
became the constable of Bourbon's prisoner, 1 ,525. 

6. Tb.2 emperor made no advantage of his good fortune. By the 
treaty of* Madrid, Francis regained his liberty, on yielding to Charles 
the duchy of Burgundy, and the superiority of Flanders and Artois. 
He gave his two sons as hostages for the fulfilment of these conditions; 
but the states refused to ratify them, and the failure was compromised 
for a sum of money. 

7. On the renewal of the war, Henry VIII. took part with France, 
and Charles lost an opportunity of obtaining the sovereignty of Italy. 
The papal army in the French interest was defeated by the consta- 
ble of Bourbon, and the pope himself made prisoner ;"but Bourbon 
was killed in the siege of Rome, and Charles allowed the pope to 
purchase his release. 

8. After the conclusion of the peace of Cambray, 1,529, Charles 
visited Italy, and received the imperial diadem from pope Clement 
VII. The Turks having invaded Hungary, the emperor marched 
against th«m in person, and compelled the sultan Solyman, with an 

my of 300,000 men, to evacuate the country. He soon after em- 
ked for Africa, to replace the dethroned Muley Hassan in the 



MODERN HISTORY. 169 

sovereignty of Tunis and Algiers, which had been usurped by Hay- 
radin Barbarossa ; and he achieved the enterprise with honour. His 
reputation at this period exceeded that of all the sovereigns of Eu- 
rope, for political ability, real power, and the extent and opulence of 
his dominions. 

9. Francis was glad to ally himself even with the Turks to cope 
with the imperialists, and Barbarossa invaded Italy ; but the troops of 
Charles prevented the co-operation of the French, and separately 
defeated and dispersed the allied powers, while anotner army of the 
imperialists ravaged Champagne and Picardy. 

10. In the interval of a truce, which was concluded at Nice, for 
ten years between the rival monarchs, Charles passed through 
France to the Netherlands, and was entertained by Francis with the 
most magnificent hospitality. He had promised to grant to the French 
king his favourite desire, the investiture of Milan ; but failing to keep 
his word, the war was renewed with double animosity. The French 
and Turkish fleets attacked Nice, but were dispersed by the Ge- 
noese admiral, Andrea Doria. In Italy the French were victori- 
ous in the battle of Cerizoles, but drew no benefit from this partial 
advantage. The imperialists, on the whole, had a decided superior- 
ity, and France must have been undone, if the disorders of Germany, 
from the contending interests of the catholics and protestants, had 
not forced the emperor to conclude the treaty of Crepi with Francis, 
1,544. At the same time Francis purchased a peace with Henry 
VIII., who had again taken part with his rival. Francis died soon 
after, in 1 ,547 ; a prince of great spirit and abilities, and of a gener- 
ous and noble mind, unfortunate only from the necessity of strug- 
gling against a power which overmatched him both in policy and 
in resources. 

1 1 . A short time before this period, was founded the order of the 
Jesuits by Ignatius Loyola, 1,535. The principle of the order was 
implicit obedience and submission to the pope. The brethren wer^ 
not confined to their cloisters, but allowed to mix with the world • 
and thus, by gaining the confidence of princes and statesmen, they 
were enabled to direct the policy of nations to the great en.3 of estab- 
lishing the supreme authority of the holy see. The wealth which 
they accumulated, the extent of their power, and the supposed con- 
sequences of their intrigues to the peace of nations, excited at length 
a general hostility to their order ; and the institution has recently 
been abolished in all the kingdoms of Europe. 

12. If Charles V. aimed at universal empire, he was ever at a dis- 
tance from the object ot hia wishes. The formidable confederacy of 
the prctestants to preserve their liberties and their religion, gave 
him perpetual disquiet in Germany. He never could form his do- 
minions into a well connected body, from the separate national inter- 
ests of the Spaniards, Flemish, and Germans ; and even the imperial 
states were divided by their jealousies, political and religious. The 
hostilities of foreign powers gave him continual annoyance. He found 
in Henry II., tfce successor of Francis, an antagonist as formidable as 
his father, rlis cares and difficulties increased as he advanced in life, 
and at length entirely broke the vigour of his mind, in a state of 
melancholy despondency he retired from the world at the age of fifty- 
sixy resigning first the kingdom of Spain to his son Philip II., 1,556, 
^nd afterwards the imperial crown in favour of his brother Ferdinand, 
who was elected emperor on the 24th day of February, 1,558. 



170 MODERN HISTORY. 



SECTION XXXVIII. 

OBSERVATIONS ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GERMAN 

EMPIRE. 

1. Previously to the reign of Maximilian I., the Germanic empire 
was subject to all the disorders of the feudal governments. The 
general diets of the state were tumultuous and indecisive, and their 
constant wars with one another kept the whole in anarchy and bar- 
barism. Wenceslaus, in 1,383, endeavoured to remedy those evils 
by the enactment of a general peace : but no effectual measures 
were taken for securing it. Albert II. attempted to accomplish 
the same end, and had some success. He divided Germany into six 
circles, each regulated by its own diet ; but the jealousies of the states 
prompted them constantly to hostilities, which there was no superior 
power sufficient to restrain. 

2. At length Maximilian I. procured, in 1,500, that solemn enact- 
ment which established a perpetual peace among (he Germanic 
states, under the cogent penalty of the aggressor being treated as a 
common enemy He established the imperial chamber for the settle- 
ment of all differences. The empire was divided anew into ten cir- 
cles, each circle sending its representatives to the imperial chamber, 
and bound to enforce the public laws through its own territory. A 
regency was appointed to subsist in the intervals of the diet, composed 
of twenty members, over whom the emperor presided. 

3. These regulations, however wise, would probably have failed 
of tVieir end, if the influence of the house of Austria, which has for 
three centuries continued to occupy the imperial throne, had not 
enforced obedience to them. The ambition and policy of Charles 
V. would have been dangerous to the freedom of the German prin- 
ces, if the new system of preserving a balance of power in Europe 
had not made these princes find allies and protectors sufficient to 
traverse the emperors schemes of absolute dominion. He attained, 
however, an authority far beyond that of any of his predecessors. 
The succeeding emperors imitated his policy ; but, as they did not 
possess equal talents, they found yet stronger obstacles to their en- 
croachments on the freedom of the states. 

4. The Germanic liberties were settled for the last time by the 
treaty of Westphalia, in 1,648, which fixed the emperor's preroga- 
tives, and the privileges of the states. The constitution ofthe em- 
pire is not framed for the ordinary ends of government, the prosper- 
ity and happiness of the people. It regards not the rights of the 
subjects, but only the independence of the several princes ; and its 
sole object is to maintain each in the enjoyment of his sovereignty, 
and prevent usurpations and encroachments on one another's terri- 
tories. It has no relation to the particular government of the states, 
each of which has its own laws and constitution, some more free, and 
others more despotic. 

5. The general diet has the power of enacting the public laws of 
the empire. It consists of three colleges, the electors, the "princes, 
and the free cities. All such public laws, and all general measures, 
are the subject of the separate deliberation of the electoral college 
and that ofthe princes. When jointly approved by them, the resolu- 



MODERN HISTORY. 171 

tion is canvassed by the college of the free cities, and, if agreed to, 
becomes a placitum of the empire. If approved finally by the em- 
peror, it is a conclusum, or general law. If disapproved, the resolu- 
tion is of no effect. Moreover, the emperor must be the proposer of 
all general laws. Still farther, no complaint or request can be made 
by any of the princes to the diet without the approbation of the 
elector archbishop of Mentz, who may refuse it at his pleasure. 
These constitutional defects are the more hurtful in their conse- 
quences, from the separate and often contending interests of the prin- 
ces, who have all the rights of sovereignty, the power of contracting 
foreign alliances, and are frequently possessed of foreign dominions 
of fargreater value than their imperial territories. 

6. The Germanic constitution has, however, in some respects, its 
advantages. The particular diets of each circle tend to unite those 
princes in all matters of national concern, whatever may be the dis- 
cordance of their individual interests. The regulations made in 
those diets compensate the want of a general legislative power. Be- 
side the circular diets, the electors, the princes, the free cities, the 
catholics, and the protestants, hold their particular diets, when their 
common interests require it ; and these powers balance one another. 
Considered, therefore, solely in the light of a league of several inde- 
pendent princes and states, associating for their common benefit, the 
Germanic constitution has many advantages; in promoting general 
harmony, securing the rights of its members, and preventing the 
weak from being oppressed by the strong. 



SECTION XXXIX. 

OF THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND, 
AND THE REVOLUTION IN DENMARK AND SWEDEN. 



I 



1. The age of Charles V. is the era of the reformation of reli- 
ion, of the discovery of the new world, and of the highest splen- 
our of the fine arts in Italy and the south of Europe. We shall 

treat in order of each of these great objects ; and, first, of the refor- 
mation. 

The voluptuous taste and the splendid projects of pope Leo X. 
demanding large supplies of money, he instituted through all the 
christian kingdoms a sale of indulgences, or remittances from the 
pains of purgatory. This traffic being abused to the most shocking 
purposes, Martin Luther, an Augustine friar, ventured to preach 
against it, and to inveigh with acrimony against the power which 
authorized it. He found many willing hearers, particularly in the 
electorate of Saxony, of which the prince Frederick was his friend 
and protector. Leo X. condemned his tenets by a papal bull, which 
only increased the zeal and indignation of the preacher. In a book 
which he published, entitled the Babykmish Captivity, he applied 
all the scriptural attributes of the whore of Babylon to the papal 
hierarchy, and attacked with equal force and virulence the doctrines 
of transubstantiation, purgatory, the celibacy of the priests, and the 
refusal of wine to the people in the communion. The book being 
condemned to the flames, Luther burned the pope's bull and the 
decretals at Wittemberg, 1,520. 

2. One of the first champions, who took up the pen against Lu- 



172 MODERN HISTORY. 

ther, was Henry VIII, of England ; whose book, presented to pope 
Leo, procured him the title now annexed to his crown, of defender of 
the faith. The rest of Europe seemed to pay little attention to 
these rising controversies. Charles V., studious of the friendship of 
the pope, took part against Luther, and symmoned him to answer 
for his doctrines in the diet of Worms. The reformer defended 
himself with great spiiit, and, aided by his friend the elector, made 
a safe escape into Saxony^ where the mass was now universally 
abolished, the images destroyed, and the convents shut up. The 
friars and nuns returned to the world, and Luther took a nun for his 
wife. Nor did these secularized priests abuse their new freedom, 
for their manners were decent, and their life exemplary. 

3. Erasmus has justly censured the impolicy of the catholic clergy 
in their modes of resisting and suppressing the new doctrines. They 
allowed them to be discussed in sermons before the people, and em- 
ployed for that purpose furious and bigoted declaimers, who only 
increased and widened differences. They would not yield in the 
most insignificant triiie, nor acknowledge a single fault ; and they 
persecuted with the utmost cruelty all whose opinions were not 
agreeable to their own standard of faith. How wise is the counsel o f 
lord Bacon " There is no better way to stop the rise of new sects 
and schisms, than to reform abuses, compound the lesser differences, 
proceed mildly from the first, refrain from sanguinary persecutions, 
and rather to soften and win the principal leaders, by gracing and 
advancing them, than to enrage them by violence and bitterness." 
Bac. Mor. Ess. Sect. 1. Ess. 12. 

4. Switzerland followed in the path of reformation. Zuinglius of 
Zurich preached the new tenets with such zeal and effect, that the 
whole canton was converted, and the senate publicly abolished the 
mass, and purified the churches. Berne took the same measures 
with greater solemnity, after a discussion in the senate which lasted 
two months. Basle imitated the same example. Other cantons 
armed in defence of their faith* ; and in a desperate engagement, in 
which the protestants were defeated, Zuinglius was slain, 1,531. 

5. Lutheranism was now making its progress towards the north 
of Europe. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, were at this time gov- 
erned by Christiern II., the Nero of the north. The Swedes, re* 
luctantly submitting to the yoke, were kept in awe by Troll, arch- 
bishop of Upsal, a faithful minister of the tyrant in all his schemes 
of oppression and cruelty. On intelligence of a revolt, the king 
and nis primate, armed with a bull from pope Leo X., massacred 
the whole body of the nobles and senators, amidst the festivity of a 
banquet. Gustavus Vasa, grand nephew of Charles Canutson, 
formerly king of Sweden, escaped from this carnage, and concealed 
himself in the mines of Dalecarlia. By degrees assembling a small 
army, he defeated the generals of Christiern, whose cruelties at 
length determined the united nations to vindicate their rights, by a 
solemn sentence of deposition. The tyrant fled to Flanders, and 
Frederick duke of Holstein was elected sovereign of the three 
kingdoms ; but Sweden, adhering to her heroic deliverer, and the 
heir of her ancient kings, acknowledged alone the sovereignty of 
Gustavus Vasa, 1,521. The bull of Leo X., and its bloody conse- 
quences, were sufficient to convert Sweden and Denmark to the 
tenets of the reformed religion. Gustavus enjoyed his sceptre many 
years in peace, and contributed greatly to the happiness and pros- 
perity of nis kingdom. 



MODERN HISTORY. 173 

6. As early as 1,525, the states of Saxony, Brunswick, Hesse Cas- 
sel, and the cities of Strasburgh and Frankfort, had embraced the 
doctrines of the reformation. Luther had now a species of spiritual 
control, which he exercised by means of a synod of six reformers. 
His successful example gave rise to reformers of different kinds, 
whose doctrines were less consonant to reason or good policy. Two 
fanatics of Saxony, Storck and Muncer, condemned infant baptism, 
and therefore were termed anabaptists. They preached universal 
equality and freedom of religious opinion, but, with singular inconsis- 
tency, attempted to propagate their Joctrines by the sword. They 
were defeated at Mulhausen, and Muncer died on a scaffold ; but the 
party seemed to acquire new courage. They surprised Munster, 
expelled the bishop, and anointed for their king a tailor named Jack 
of Leyden, who defended the city with the most desperate courage, 
but fell at length, with his party "under the superior force of regular 
troops. The anabaptists, thus sanguinary in their original tenets 
and practices, have long ago become peaceable and harmless sub- 
jects. 

7. The united power of the pope and emperor found it impossi- 
ble to check the progress of the reformation. The diet of Spires 
proposed articles of accommodation between the Lutherans and 
catholics. Fourteen cities of Germany, and several of the electors, 
protested formally against those articles; and hence the Lutheran 
party acquired the name of protestants. They presented to the 
assembly at Augsburg a confession of their faith, which is the stand- 
ard of the protestant doctrines. 

8. The virtuous lives and conduct of the protestant leaders, com- 
pared with those of the higher clergy among the catholics, formed 
a contrast very favourable to the progress of the reformation. The 
solemn manner in which the states of Switzerland, and particularly 
Geneva, had proceeded, in calmly discussing every point of contro- 
versy, aad yielding only to the force of rational conviction, attracted 
the respect of all Europe. John Calvin, a Frenchman, becoming a 
zealous convert to the new doctrines, was the first who gave them a 
systematic form by his Institutions, and enforced their authority by 
the establishment of synods, consistories, and deacons. The magis- 
tracy of Geneva gave these ordinances the authority of law ; and 
they were adopted by six of the Swiss cantons, by the protestants oi 
France, and the presbyterians of Scotland and England. The ablest 
advocates of Calvin will find it difficult to vindicate him from the 
charge of intolerance and the spirit of persecution ; but these, which 
are vices or defects of the individual, attach not in the least to the 
doctrines of the reformation, which are subject to the test of reason, 
and can derive no blemish or dishonour from the men who propagat- 
ed them, or even from the motives which might influence some of 
their earliest supporters. This observation applies more particularly 
to the subject of the ensuing section. 

See Rett's Elements of General Knowledge, Vol. I. 
P2 



174 MODERN HISTORY. 



SECTION XL. 

OF THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND UNDER HENRY VIII., 

A&3 HIsSSUXflSadORS. 

1. Wickliff, in the middle of the fourteenth century, by an at- 
tack on the doctrines of transubstantiation, indulgences, and auricular 
confession, and still more by a translation of the scriptures into the 
vernacular tongue, had prepared the minds of the people of England 
for a revolution in religious opinions ; but his professed followers 
were not numerous. The intemperate passions of Henry VIII. were 
the immediate cause of the reformation in England. He had been 
married eighteen years to Catharine of Spain, aunt of Charles V., 
by whom he had three children, one of them, Mary, afterwards queen 
of England ; when, falling in love with Anna Mullen, he solicited 
Clement V1L for a divorce from Catharine, on the score of her for- 
mer marriage to his elder brother Arthur. The pope found himself 
in the painful dilemma of either affronting the emperor, or mortally 
offending the king of England. In hope that the king's passion 
might cool, he protracted the time by preliminaries and negotiations, 
but to no purpose. Henry was resolutely bent on accomplishing 
his wishes. The Sorbonne and other French universities gave an 
opinion in his favour. Armed with this sanction, he caused Cranmer 
archbishop of Canterbury to annul his marriage. The repudiated 
queen gave place to Anna Bullen. On this occasion Wolsey, the 
minister of Henry, lost the favour of his master, by opposing, as 
was believed, his darling measure. 

2. Clement VII., from this specimen of the wayward temper of 
Henry, resolved to keep well with the emperor, and issued his bull, 
condemnatory of the sentence of the archbishop of Canterbury. 
Henry immediately proclaimed himself head of the church of Eng- 
land ; the parliament ratified his title, and the pope's authority was 
instantly suppressed in all his dominions, 1,534. He proceeded to 
abolish the monasteries, and confiscate their treasures and revenues, 
electing out of the latter six new bishoprics and a college. The 
immoralities of the monks were sedulously exposed, the forgery of 
relics, false miracles, &c. held up to the popular scorn. 

3. Yet Henry, though a reformer, and pope in his own kingdom, 
had not renounced the religion of Rome ■ he was equally an enemy 
to the tenets of Luther and Calvin as to the pope's jurisdiction in 
England. Inconstant in his affections, and a stranger to all humanity, 
he removed Anna Bullen from the throne to the scaffold, to gratify a 
new passion for Jane Seymour, a maid of honour, who happily died 
about a year after. To her succeeded Anne of Cleves, whom he 
divorced in nine months, to make way for Catharine Howard. She 
underwent the same fate with Anna Bullen, on a similar suspicion oi 
infidelity to his bed. His sixth wife, Catharine Parr, with difficulty 
retained her hazardous elevation, but had the good fortune to sur- 
vive the tyrant. 

4. On the death of Henry VIII., 1,547, and the accession of his son 
Edward VI., the protestant religion prevailed in England, and was 
favoured by the sovereign ; but he died at the early age of fifteen, 
1 ,553 ; and the sceptre passed to the hands of his sister Mary, an in- 



MODERN HISTORY. 17& 

tolerant catholic, and most cruel persecutor of the protestants. In 
her reign, which was of five years' duration, above 800 miserable 
victims were burnt at a stake, martyrs to their religious opinions. 
Mary inherited a congenial spirit with her husband, Philip ll of SpaiiL 
whose intolerance cost him the loss of a third part of his dominions 

5. Mary was succeeded in 1,558 by her sister Elizabeth, the daugh 
ter of Anna JBullen, a protestant, the more zealous from an abhor 
rence of the character of her predecessor. In her reign the religion 
of England became stationary. The hierarchy was established in its 
present form, by archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons, the king 
being by law the head of the church. The liturgy had been settled 
in the reign of Edward VI. The canons are agreeable chietly to the 
Lutheran tenets. 

Of the reformation in Scotland we shall afterwards treat under a 
separate section. 

SECTION XLI. 

OF THE DISCOVERY AND CONQUEST OF AMERICA BY THE 

SPANIARDS. 

1. Among those great events which distinguished the age of Charles 
V. was the conquest of Mexico by Fernando Cortez, and of Peru by 
the two brothers, Francis and Gonzalo Pizarro. The discovery of 
America preceded the first of these events about twenty-seven years, 
but the account of it has been postponed, that the whole may be- 
shortly treated in connexion. 

Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, a man of an enterprising spirit, 
having in vain^ solicited encouragement from his native state, from 
Portugal, and from England, to attempt discoveries in the western 
ocean, applied to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Under the patron- 
age of Isabella, as queen of Castile, he was furnished with three 
small ships, ninety men, and a few thousand ducats for the expense 
of his voyage. After thirty-three days' sail from the Canaries he dis- 
covered San Salvador, September, 1,492; and soon after the islands 
of Cuba and Hispaniola. He returned to Spain, and brought a few 
of the natives, some presents of gold, and curiosities of the country. 
He was treated by the Spaniards with the highest honours, and soon 
supplied with a suitable armament for the prosecution of his discove- 
ries. In his second voyage he discovered the Caribbees and Jamaica. 
In a third voyage he descried the continent of America, within ten 
degrees of the equator, toward the isthmus of Panama. The next 
year the geographer Americus followed the track of Columbus, and 
had the undeserved honour of giving his name to this continent. 

2. The inhabitants of America and its islands were a race of men 
quite new to the Europeans. They are of the colour of copper. In 
some quarters, as in Mexico and Peru, the Spaniards are said to have 
found a flourishing empire, and a people polished, refined, and luxu- 
rious ; in others, man was a naked savage, the member of a wander- 
ing tribe, whose sole occupation was hunting or war. The savages 
of the continent were characterized by their cruelty to their enemies, 
their contempt of death, and their generous affection for their friends. 
The inhabitants of the islands were a milder race, of gentler manners, 
and less hardy conformation of body and mind. The larger animals, 
as the horse, the cow, were unknown in America. 



176 MODERN HISTORY. 

3. Those newly-discovered countries were believed to contain in 
exhaustible treasures. The Spaniards, under the pretence of reli 
gion and policy, treated the inhabitants with the most shocking inhu- 
manity. The rack, the scourge, the faggot, were employed to con 
vert them to Christianity. They were hunted like wild beasts, or 
burnt alive in their thickets and fastnesses. Hispaniola, containing 
three millions of inhabitants, and Cuba, containing above 600,000, 
were absolutely depopulated in a few years. It was now resolved to 
explore the continent ; and Fernando Cortez, with eleven ships and 
617 men, sailed ibr that purpose from Cuba in 1,519. Landing at 
Tabasco,' he advanced, though with a brave opposition from the na- 
tives, into the interior of the country. The state of Tlascala, after 
ineffectual resistance, became the ally of the Spaniards. On the ap- 
proach of the Spaniards to Mexico, the terror of their name had pav- 
ed the way for an easy conquest. 

4. The Mexican empire, though founded little more than a century 
before this period, had arisen to great splendour. Its sovereign, Mon- 
tezuma, received the invaders with the reverence due to superior 
beings. But a short acquaintance opened the eyes of the Mexicans. 
Finding nothing in the Spaniards beyond what was human, they were 
daring enough to attack and put to death a few of them. The in- 
trepid Cortez immediately marched to the palace with fifty men, 
and putting the emperor in irons, carried him off prisoner to his 
camp ; where he afterwards persuaded him to acknowledge himself 
a vassal of the king of Castile, to hold his crown of the king as his 
superior, and to subject his dominions to the payment of an annual 
tribute. 

5. Velasquez, governor of Cuba, jealous of Cortez, attempted to 
supersede him, by despatching a superior army to the continent ; but 
Cortez defeated his troops, and compelled them to join his own ban- 
ners. In an attack by the Mexicans for the rescue of their sovereign, 
Montezuma, having offered to mediate between them and their ene- 
mies, was indignantly put to death by his own subjects. The whole 
empire, under its new sovereign, Guatimozin, was now armed against 
the Spaniards ; and while the plains were covered with their archers 
and spearmen, the lake of Mexico was filled with armed canoes. To 
oppose the latter the Spaniards built a few vessels under the walls of 
their city, and soon evinced their superiority to their feeble foe on 
both elements. The monarch was taken prisoner by the officers ot 
Cortez, and was stretched naked on burning coals, because he refus- 
ed to discover his treasures. Soon after a conspiracy against the 
Spaniards was discovered^ and the wretched Guatimozin, with all the 
princes of his blood, were executed on a gibbet. This was the last 
blow to the power of the Mexicans; and Cortez was now absolute 
master of the whole empire, 1,525. 

6. In the year 1,531 Diego D'Almagro and Francis Pizarro, with 
250 foot, 60 horse, and 12 small pieces of cannon, landed in Peru, a 
large and flourishing empire, governed by an ancient race of mon- 
archs named Incas. The Inca Atabalipa receiving the Spaniards with 
reverence, they immediately required him to embrace the christian 
faith, and surrender all his dominions to the emperor Charles V., who 
had obtained a gift of them from the pope. The proposal being mis- 
understood, or received with hesitation, Pizarro seized the monarch 
as his prisoner, while his troops massacred 5,000 of the Peruvians on 
the spot. The empire was now plundered of prodigious treasures in 
gold and precious stones; and Atabalipa, being suspected of conceal- 



MODERN HISTORY. 177 

a part from his insatiable invaders, was solemnly tried as a crimi- 
, and strangled at a stake. 

7. The courage of the Spaniards surpassed even their inhumanity. 
D'Almagro marched 500 leagues, through continual opposition, to 
Cusco, and penetrated across the Cordilleras into Chili, two degrees 
beyond the southern tropic. He was slain in a civil war between 
him and his associate Francis Pizarro, who was soon after assassinated 
by the party of his rival. A few years after the Spaniards discover- 
ed the inexhaustible silver mines of Potosi, which they compelled 
the Peruvians to work for their advantage. They are now wrought 
by the negroes of Africa. The native Peruvians, who are a weakly 
race of men, were soon almost exterminated by cruelty and intoler- 
able labour. The humane bishop of Chiapa remonstrated with suc- 
cess to Charles V. on this subject ; and the residue of this miserable 
people have been since treated with more indulgence. 

8. The Spanish acquisitions in America belong to the crown, and 
not to the state : they are the absolute property of the sovereign, 
and regulated solely by his will. They consist of three provinces^ 
Mexico, Peru, and Terra Firma ; and are governed by three vice- 
roys, who exercise supreme civil and military authority over their 
respective provinces. There are eleven courts of audience for the 
administration of justice, with whose judicial proceedings the vice- 
roys cannot interfere ; and their judgments are subject to appeal to 
the royal council of the Indies, wnose jurisdiction extends to every 
department, ecclesiastical, civil, military, and commercial. A tribu- 
nal in Spain, called Casa de la Contratacion, regulates the departure 
of the fleets, and their destination and equipment, under the contro- 
of the council of the indies, 

9. The gold and silver of Spanish America, though the exclusi/e 
property of the crown of Spain, has, by means of war, marriages jf 
princes, and extension of commerce, come into general circulatift * t 
and has greatly increased the quantity of specie, and diminished & \ 
value of money over all Europe. 



SECTION XLII. 

POSSESSIONS OF THE OTHER EUROPEAN NATIONS IN AMER 
ICA. THE UNITED STATES. 

1. The example of the Spaniards excited a desire in the othei 
nations of Europe to participate with them in the riches of the new 
world. The French, in 1,557, attempted to form a settlement on 
the coast of Brazil, where the Portuguese had already established 
themselves from the beginning of the century. The colony was 
divided by faction, and was soon utterly destroyed by the Portu- 
guese. It is one of the richest of the American settlements, both 
from the produce of its soil, and its mines of gold and precious 
stones. 

2. The Spaniards were in possession of Florida when the French 
attempted to colonize it in 1,564, without success. The French 
established a settlement in Acadie in 1,604, and founded Quebec in 
Canada in 1,608. But these settlements were perpetually subject to 
attack from the English. In 1,629 the French had not a foot of 
territory in America. Canada has been repeatedly taken by the 

23 



173 MODERN HISTORY. 

English, and restored, by different treaties, to the French ; but since 
the peace of 1,763 it has been a British settlement. The French 
drew their greatest advantages from the islands of St. Domingo, 
Guadaloupe, and Martinico. From their continental possessions 01 
Louisiana, and the settlements on the Mississippi, which they have 
now lost, they never derived any solid benefit. 

3. The Dutch have no settlement on the continent of America, 
but Surinam, a part of Guiana ; and, in the West-Indies, the islands 
of Currassoa and St. Eustatius. The Danes possess the inconsidera- 
ble islands of St. Thomas and Santa Cruz. 

4. The British have extensive settlements on the continent of 
America, and in the West-India islands. England derived her right 
to her settlements in North America from the first discovery of the 
country by Sebastian Cabot in 1,497, the year before the discovery 
of the continent of South America by Columbus ; but no attempts 
were made by the English to colonize any part of the country till 
nearly a century afterward. This remarkable neglect is in some 
measure accounted for by the frugal maxims of Henry VII., and the 
unpropitious circumstances of the reigns of Henry VIII., of Edward VI., 
and of the bigoted Mary : reigns peculiarly adverse to the extension 
of industry, trade, and navigation. 

5. In 1,585 sir Walter Raleigh undertook to settle a colony in Vir- 
ginia, so named in honour of his queen ; but his attempts were fruit- 
less. Two colonies, destined for settlement, were successively sent 
over to the Virginian territory ; but the first was reduced to great dis- 
tress, and taken back to England by sir Francis Drake ; the second* 
left unsupported, could never afterward be found. 

6. In 1,606 king James granted a patent for settling two planta- 
tions on the main coasts of North America. Dividing that portion 
of the country, which stretches from the thirty-fourth to the forty- 
fifth degree of latitude, into two districts nearly equal, he granted 
the southern^ called the first colony, to the London company, and 
the northern, called the second, to the Plymouth company. On 
the reception of this patent several persons of distinction in the Eng- 
lish nation undertook to settle the southern colony; and in 1,607 the 
first permanent colony was settled in Virginia. 

7. The first settlement in the northern district was made at Ply- 
mouth in 1 ,620, by a number of puritans, who, having a few years 
before left England, to liberate themselves from the oppressions of 
the episcopal hierarchy, had found a temporary asylum in Holland. 
In 1,629 the patent of Massachusetts was confirmed by king Charles 
I. ; and in the following year a large body of English non-conformists 
settled that territory. The settlement of Connecticut was begun in 
1,636 by emigrants from Massachusetts. The settlement of Provi- 
dence, in Rhode Island, was begun the same year by Roger Wil- 
liams, a clergyman, who, for his refusal to submit to the control of 
the government of Massachusetts, in religious matters, had been ex- 
iled from that colony. New York, originally settled by the Dutch, 
and by them called New Netherlands, was taken from them by the 
English in 1 ,664, at which time it was subjected to the British crown, 
and settled by English colonists. New Jersey was settled in 1,667, 
principally by quakers from England. The charter of Pennsylvania 
was given in 1,681 by king Charles II. to William Penn ; and a set- 
tlement was begun the same year by a colony consisting principally 
of quakers. The patent of Maryland was given bv king Charles I. 
to lord Baltimore in 1,632; and two years afterward the colony was 



MODERN HISTORY. 179 

settled by a body of Roman catholics from England. The charter 
of Carolina was granted by Charles II. to the earl of Clarendon and 
several associates in 1,663; and that colony was soon after settled by 
the English. In 1,729 the province was divided into two distinct 
governments, one of which was called North, and the other 
South Carolina. The charter of Georgia was given in 1,732 by king 
George II. to a number of persons in England, who, from motives of 

gatriotism and humanity, projected a settlement in that wild territory. 
y this measure it was intended to obtain, first, possession of anexten 
eive tract of country ; to strengthen the province of Carolina ; to 
rescue a great number of people in Great Britain and Ireland from 
the miseries of poverty ; to open an asylum for persecuted protes- 
tants in different parts of Europe ; and to attempt the conversion and 
civilization of the natives. Under the guidance of general Ogle- 
thorpe a colony was settled here in 1,733. Nova Scotia was settled 
in the reign of James 1. The Floridas were ceded by Spain to Great 
Britain at the peace of 1,763; but they were reduced by the arms 
of his catholic majesty during the American war, and guaranteed to 
the crown of Spain by the definitive treaty of 1,783. 

8. All the British colonies in North America were subject to the 
government of Great Britain from the time of their settlement un- 
til the year 1,775. Opposition to certain measures of the British 
parliament, the tendency of which, was to claim for the king and 
parliament of Great Britain, a right to tax colonies, that did not send 
representatives to parliament, and were therefore hostile to rights and 
liberties, that had been enjoyed and exercised by the colonies from 
their origin, having induced the government to send troops to Amer- 
ica to enforce submission to their laws, hostilities commenced in 
April, 1,775. In 1,776 the American congress declared the United 
States independent. In September 1,783, a definitive treaty of peace 
was concluded, by which his Britannic majesty acknowledged the 
United States of "America to be free, sovereign, and independent 
states. In 1,789 the government of these states was organized, con- 
formably to the federal constitution ; and George Washington, who 
had been commander in chief of the revolutionary army, was inaugu- 
rated the first president. 

9. The British colonies in America, and the United States, are 
greatly inferior to the Spanish American colonies in natural riches, 
as they produce neither silver nor gold, nor cochineal ; yet they 
are in general of fertile soil, and considerably improved by industry. 
They afford auprofitable market for European manufactures. Canada 
furnishes for exportation wheat, flour, flax-seed, lumber, fish, potash, 
oil, ginseng, furs, pelts, and various other commodities. The pro- 
duce of the West India islands (Jamaica, Barbadoes, St. Christopher's, 
Antigua, the Granadas, and other islands), in sugar, coffee, cocoa, 
rum, molasses, cotton, and other articles, is of very great value to 
the mother country. The northern states in tlie federal union fur- 
nish masts, ship timber, lumber, potash, furs, pelts, fish, beef, pork, 
butter, cheese, rye, and maize; the middle states, flour, maize, 
flax-seed, peas, deer skins, and other pelts ; and the southern states, 
rice, flour, indigo, cotton, tobacco, pork, live oak, tar, pitch, and 
turpentine. 



130 MODERN HISTORY. 



SECTION XBLH. 



OF THE STATE OF THE FINE ARTS IN EUROPE IN THE AGE 
OF LEO X. 

1. In enumerating those great objects which characterized the 
end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, we 
remarked the high advancement to which the fine arts attained in 
Europe in the age of Leo X. The strong bent which the human 
mind seems to take, in certain periods, to one class of pursuits in 
preference to all others, as in the age of Leo X., to the hne arts of 
painting, sculpture, and architecture, may be partly explained from 
moral causes ; such as the peaceful state of a country, the genius or 
taste, and the liberal encouragement of its sovereigns, the general 
emulation that arises where one or two artists are of confessed emU 
nence, and the aid which men derive from the studies and works of 
one another. These causes have doubtless great influence, but do 
not seem entirely sufficient to account for the fact. The operation 
of such causes must be slow and gradual. In the case of the fine 
arts, the transition from obscurity to splendour was rapid and instan- 
taneous. From the contemptible mediocrity in which they had re- 
mained for ages, they rose at one step to the highest pitch of excel- 
lence. 

2. The arts of painting and sculpture were buried in the west un- 
der the ruins of the Roman empire, j^hey gradually declined in 
the latter ages, as we may perceive by the series of the coins of the 
lower empire. The Ostrogoths, instead of destroying, sought to 
preserve the monuments of taste and genius. They were even the 
inventors of some of the arts dependent on design, as the composition 
of Mosaic. But, in the middle ages, those arts were at a very low 
ebb in Europe. They began, however, to revive a little about the 
end of the thirteenth century. Cimabue, a Florentine, from the 
sight of the paintings of some Greek artists in one of the churches, 
began to attempt similar performances, and soon excelled his models. 
His scholars were Ghiotto, Gaddi, Tassi Cavillini, and Stephano Fio- 
rentino ; and they formed an academy at Florence in 1,350. 

3. The works of those, early painters, with some fidelity of imita- 
tion, had not a spark of grace or elegance ; and such continued to be 
the state of the art till toward the end of the fifteenth century, when 
it arose at once to the summit of perfection. Raphael painted at 
first in the hard manner of his master Perugino ; but soon deserted 
it, and struck at once into the noble, elegant, and graceful ; in short, 
the imitation of the antique. This change was the result of genius 
alone. The ancient sculptures were familiar to the early painters, 
but they had looked on them with cold indifference. They were 
new surveyed by other eyes. Michael Angelo, Raphael, and Leo- 
nardo da Vinci, were animated by the same genius that formed the 
Grecian Appelles, Zeuxis, Glycon, Phidias, and Praxiteles. 

4. Nor was Italy alone thus distinguished. Germany, Flanders, and 
Switzerland, produced in the same age artists of consummate merit. 
Before the notice of these we shall briefly characterize the schools 
of Italy. 

5. First in order is the school of Florence, of which the most em- 
inent master was Michael Angelo, born in 1,474. His works are 



MODERN HISTORY. 181 

characterized by a profound knowledge of the anatomy of the human 
figure, perhaps chiefly formed on the contemplation of the ancient 
sculptures. His paintings exhibit the grand, the sublime, and terri- 
ble ; but he drew not from the antique its simple grace and beauty. 

6. The Roman school was founded by Raphael d'Urbino. born in 
1 ,483. This great painter united almost every excellence ot the art. 
In invention, grace, majestic simplicity, forcible expression of the 

Eassions, he stands unrivalled, and far beyond all competition. He 
as borrowed liberally, but without servility, from the antique. 

7. Of the school of Lombardy, or the Venetian, the most eminent 
artists were Titian, Giorgione, Corregio, and Parmeggiano. Titian 
is most eminent in portrait, and in the painting of female beauty. 
Such is the truth of his colouring, that his figures are nature itself. 
It was the testimony of Michael Angelo to the merits of Titian, that, 
if he had studied at Rome or Florence, amidst the master-pieces of 
antiquity, he would have eclipsed all the painters in the world. Ti- 
tian lived to the age of a hundred. Giorgione, with similar merits, 
was cut off in the flower of his youth. Correggio was superior in 
colouring, and in the knowledge of light and shade, to all who have 

f>receded or followed him. This knowledge was the result of study, 
n other painters those effects are frequently accidental, as we ob- 
serve that they are not uniform. Parmeggiano imitated the graceful 
manner of Raphael, but carried it to a degree of affectation. 

8. Such were the three original Italian schools. The character of 
the Florentine is grandeur and sublimity, with great excellence ot 
design, but a want of grace, of skill in colouring, and effect of light 
and shade. The character of the Roman is equal excellence of de- 
sign, a grandeur tempered with moderation and simplicity, a high 
degree of grace and elegance, and a superior knowledge, though not 
an excellence, in colouring. The character of the Venetian is the 
perfection of colouring, and the utmost force of light and shade, 
with an inferiority in every other particular. 

9. To the school of Raphael succeeded the second Roman school, 
or that of the Caraccis, three brothers, of whom Annibal was the 
most famous. His scholars were, Guercino, Albano, Lanfranc, Dom- 
enichino, and Guido. Of these eminent painters the first and last 
were the best The elegant contours of Guercino, and the strength 
sweetness, and majesty of Guido, are the admiration of all true judges 
of painting. 

10. In the same age^ the Flemish school, though of a quite differ- 
ent character, and inferior to the Italian, shone with great lustre. 
Oil painting was invented by the Flemings in the fifteenth century : 
and, in that age, Heemskirk, Frans Floris, Quintin Matsys, and the 
German Albert Durer, were deservedly distinguished. Of the Flem 
ish school, Rubens, though a painter of a much later age, is the 
chief ornament. His figures, though too corpulent, are drawn with 
great truth and nature. He possesses inexhaustible invention, and 
great skill in the expression of the passions. Switzerland produced 
Hans Holbein, a painter of great eminence in portrait, and remarka- 
ble for truth of colouring. From his residence at the court of Henry 
VIII. there are more specimens of his works in Britain than of any 
other foreign painter. Holland had likewise its painters, whose chief 
merit was the faithful representation of vulgar nature, and perfect 
knowledge of the mechanism of the art, the power of colours, and 
the effect of light and shade. 

11. With the art of painting, sculpture and architecture were like 

Q 



182 MODERN HISTORY. 

wise revived in toe same age, and brought almost to perfection, 
The universal genius of Michael Angelo snone equally conspicuous 
in all the three departments. His statue of Bacchus was judged by 
Raphael to be the work of Phidias or Praxiteles. The Grecian ar- 
chitecture was first revived by the Florentines in the fourteenth cen- 
tury ; and the cathedral of Pisa was constructed partly from the ma- 
terials of an ancient Greek temple. The art arrived at perfection in 
the age of Leo X., when the church of St. Peter's at Rome, under 
the direction of Bramante, San Gallo, Raphael, and Michael Angelo, 
exhibited the noblest specimen of architecture in the world. 

12. The invention of the art of engraving on copper by Tomaso 
Finiguerra, a goldsmith of Florence, is dated about 1,460. From Ita- 
iy it travelled into Flanders, where it was first practised by Martin 
Schoen of Antwerp. His scholar was the celebrated Albert Durer, 
who engraved excellently both on copper and on wood. Etching on 
copper by means of aquafortis, which gives mOre ease than the stroke 
of the graver, was discovered by Parmeggiano, who executed in that 
manner his own beautiful designs. No art underwent, in its early 
stages, so rapid an improvement as that of engraving. In the course 
of 1 50 years from its invention it attained nearly to its perfection ; 
for there has been little proportional improvement in the last century, 
since the days of Audran, Poilly, and Edelinck. 

13. The art of engraving in mezzotinto is of much later date than 
the ordinary mode of engraving on copper. It was the invention of 
prince Rupert about 1,650. It is characterized by a softness equal 
to that of the pencil, and a happy blending of light and shade, and is 
therefore peculiarly adapted to portrait, where those requisites are 
most essential. 

14. The age of Leo X. was likewise an era of very high literary 
splendour ; but of the distinguished writers of that period we shall 
afterwards treat, in a connected view of the progress of literature 
and the sciences during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 



SECTION XL1V. 
OF THE OTTOMAN POWER IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 

1. From the period of the taking of Constantinople, in the middle 
of the fifteenth century, the Turks were a great and conquering 
people. In the sixteenth century, Selim I., after he had subdued 
Syria and Mesopotamia, undertook the conquest of Egypt, then gov 
erned by the Mamelukes, a race of Circassians, who had seized the 
country in 1,250, and jsut an end to the government of the Arabian 
princes, the posterity of Saladin. The conquest of Egypt by Selim 
made little change in the form of its government. It professes to 
own the sovereignty of the Turks, but is in reality still governed by 
the Mameluke beys. 

2. Solyman (the magnificent) son of Selim, was, like his prede- 
cessors, a great conqueror, The island of Rhodes, possessed by the 
knights of St. John, was a darling object of his ambition. These 
knights had expelled the Saracens from the island in 1,310. Soly- 
man attacked Rhodes with 140,000 men and 400 ships. The Rho- 
dia/i knights, aided by the English, Italians, and Spaniards, made a 
noble defence j but, after a siege of many months, were forced to 
cap:iulate and evacuate the island* in 1,522. Since that time Rhodes 



MODERN HISTORY. 183 

ias been the property of the Turks The commercial laws of the 
ancient Rhodians were adopted by the Romans, and at this day are 
the foundation of the maritime jurisprudence of all the nations of 
Europe. 

3. Solyman subdued the greater part of Hungary, Moldavia, and 
Walachia; and took from the Persians Georgia and Bagdat. His 
son Selim II. took Cyprus from the Venetians in 1,571. They ap- 
plied to the pope for aid, who, together with Philip II. of Spain, enter- 
ed into a triple alliance against the Ottoman power. An armament of 
250 ships of war, commanded by Philip's natural brother, Don John 
of Austria, was opposed to 250 Turkish gallies in the gulf of Le- 
panto, near Corinth ; and the Turks were defeated, with the loss of 
150 ships and 15,000 men, 1,571. This great victory was soon after 
followed by the taking of Tunis by the same commander. 

4. But these successes were of little consequence. The Otto- 
man power continued extremely formidable. Under Amurath II. the 
Turks made encroachments on Hungary, and subdued a part of Per- 
sia. Mahomet III., though a barbarian in his private character, sup- 
ported the dignity of the empire, and extended its dominions. The 
Ottoman power declined from his time, and yielded to that of the 
Persians under Schah-Abbas the great, who wrested from the lurks 
a large part of their late-acquired dominions. 



SECTION XLV. 

STATE OE PERSIA AND OTHER ASIATIC KINGDOMS IN THE 
SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES. 

1. The great empire of Persia, in the end of the fifteenth century, 
underwent a revolution on account of religion. IldV Jar or Sophi, a 
religious enthusiast, established a new sect of Mahometans, which 
held Ali to be the successor of Mahomet instead of Omar, and abol- 
ished the pilgrimages to Mecca. The Persians eagerly embraced a 
doctrine which distinguished them from their enemies the Turks; 
and Ismael, the son of Sophi, following the example of Mahomet, 
enforced his opinions by the sword. He subdued all Persia and Ar- 
menia, and left this vast empire to his descendants. 

2. Schah-Abbas, surnamed the great, was the great-grandson of 
Ismael Sophi. He ruled his empire with despotic sway, but with 
most able policy. He regained the provinces which had been 
taken by the Turks, and drove the Portuguese from their settlement 
of Ormuz. He rebuilt the fallen cities of Persia, and contributed 
greatly to the introduction of arts and civilization. His son Schah- 
Sesi reigned weakly and unfortunately. In his time Schah-Gean, the 
great Mogul, deprived Persia of Candahar; and the Turks took Bag- 
dat in 1,638. From that period the Persian monarchy gradually de- 
clined. Its sovereigns became the most despicable slaves to their 
own ministers ; and a revolution in the beginning of the eighteenth 
century put an end to the dynasty of the Sophis, and gave the throne 
to the Afghan princes, a race of Tartars. 

3. The government of Persia is almost as despotic as that of Tur- 
key. The sovereign draws a small yearly tax from every subject, 
and receives likewise stated gifts on particular occasions. The 
crown is hereditary, with the exclusion of females ; but the sons of 



V. 



184 MODERN HISTORY. 

a daughter succeed in their course. There is no other rank 
sia than that annexed to office, which is held during the mona 
pleasure. The national religion is the Mahometan, as reformed 
Sophi. The sect of the Guebres preserve the religion of Zoroaster, 
as contained in the Zendavesta and Sadder, and keep alive the sacred 
fire. JtPart I., Sect. XI.) 

4. The poetry of the Persians displays great fancy and luxuriance 
of imagery. The epic poet Firdousi is said to rival the various 
merits of Homer and Ariosto ; and the writings of Sadi and Hafez, 
both in prose and poetry, are admired by all who are conversant in 
oriental literature. 

5. Tartary. From this vast tract of country sprang those con- 
querors who produced all the great revolutions in Asia. Tartary is no 
more than a vast desert, inhabited by wandering tribes, who follow 
the life of the ancient Scythians. The Turks, a race of Tartars 
overwhelmed the empire of the caliphs. Mahmoud, a Tartar, con- 
quered Persia and great part of India in the tenth century. The 
Tartar Gengiscan subdued India, China, Persia, and Asiatic Russia, in 
the beginning of the thirteenth century. Batoucan, one of his sons, 
ravaged to the frontiers of Germany. Tamerlane, the scourge of 
the Turks, and the conqueror of a great part of Asia, was of the 
race of Gengiscan. Babar, great-grandson of Tamerlane, subdued 
all the country between Samarcand and Agra in the empire of the 
Mogul. The descendants of those conquerors reign in India, Persia, 
and China. 

6. Thibet. The southern part of Tartary, called Thibet, exhibits 
the phenomenon of a kingdom governed by a human being called 
the Dalai Lama, or Great Lama, whose divinity is acknowledged 
not only by his own subjects, but over China and a part of India. 
This supposed god is a young man, whom the priests educate and 
train to his function, and in whose name they in reality govern the 
kingdom. 



SECTION XLVI. 
HISTORY OF INDIA. 

1. The earliest accounts of this great tract of civilized country 
are those of Herodotus, who lived about a century before Alexander 
the great; and it is remarkable that the character given of the people 
by that early writer, corresponds perfectly with that of the modern 
Hindoos. He had probably taken his accounts from Scylax of Cari- 
andria, whom Darius Hystaspes had sent to explore the country. 
But till the age of Alexander, the Greeks had no particular knowl- 
edge of that extraordinary people. Alexander penetrated into the 
Panjab, where his troops refusing to proceed, he embarked on the 
Hydaspas, which runs into the Indus, and thence pursued his course 
for above 1,000 miles to the ocean. The narrative given by Arrian 
of this expedition was taken from the verbal accounts of Alexander's 
officers ; and its particulars agree yet more remarkably than those of 
Herodotus with the modern manners of the Hindoos. 

2. India was visited by Seleucus, to whose share it fell in the par- 
tition of Alexander's empire; and Antiochus the great, 200 years 



MODERN HISTORY. 186 

afterward, made a short expedition thither. It is probable too that 
some small intercourse subsisted between the Greek empire of Bac- 
triana and India ; but, till the fifteenth century, no European power 
thought of forming any establishment in that country. From the age 
of Alexander down to the period of the Portuguese discoveries there 
had constantly been some commercial intercourse between Europe 
and India, both by sea and across the desert. 

3. The Mahometans, as early as A. D. 1,000, had begun to estab- 
lish an empire in India. Mahmoud, a Tartar, conquered a great 
part of the country, and established his capital at Ghazna, near the 
sources of the Indus, extirpating, wherever he came, the Hindoo 
religion, and establishing the Mahometan in its stead. Mohammed 
Gori, in 1,194, penetrated to Benares; and one of his successors 
fixed the seat of his empire at JDelhy, which has continued to be the 
capital of the Mogul princes. The sovereignty founded by Mah- 
moud was overwhelmed in 1,222 by Gengiscan, as was his empire in 
the following century by Tamerlane, whose posterity are at this day 
on the throne of the Mogul empire. 

4. The Mogul empire was, even in the beginning of the 18th cen- 
tury, the most powerful and nourishing of all the Asiatic monarchies. 
The emperor Aurengzebe, the son of Schah-Gean though a mon- 
ster of cruelty, and a most despotic tyrant, enjoyed a life prolonged 
to a hundred years, crowned with uninterrupted prosperity and suc- 
cess. He extended his empire over the whole peninsula of India 
within the Ganges. 

5. The dominion of the Mogul is not absolute over all the coun- 
tries which compose his empire. Tamerlane allowed the petty 

Srinces, rajahs or nabobs, to retain their territories, of which their 
escendants are at this day in possession. They pay a tribute to the 
great Mogul, as an acknowledgment of his sovereignty, and ob- 
serve the treaties agreed to by their ancestors; but they are in 
other respects independent princes. 

6. Bengal became a part of the Mogul's empire by conquest in the 
end of the sixteenth century, and was commonly governed by a son 
of the great Mogul, who had under him several inferior nabobs, the 
former princes of the country. Such was its condition when the 
British East India company, between 1,751 and 1,760, conquered and 
obtained possession of that kingdom, together with Bahar and 
part of Orissa, a large, populous, and most flourishing country, con- 
taining above ten millions of inhabitants, and producing an immense 
revenue ; and these territories have since that period received a con- 
siderable addition. The East India company has the benefit of the 
whole commerce of the Mogul empire, with Arabia, Persia, and 
Thibet, as well as with the kingdoms of Azem, Aracan, Pegu, Siam, 
Malacca, China, and many of the oriental islands. 

The fixed establishments of the British in the country of Indostan 
have afforded opportunity of obtaining much instructive knowledge 
relative to the ancient state of that country, of which we shall give 
a short sketch in the following section. 

<%2 34 



186 MODERN HSITORY. 



SECTION XbVli 



ANCIENT STATE OF INDIA. MANNERS, LAWS, ARTS, 
SCIENCES, AND RELIGION OF THE HINDOOS. 

1. The remains of the ancient knowledge of the Hindoos have 
been preserved by a hereditary priesthood, in the Sanscrit language, 
long since extinct, and only known to a few of the Bramins. The 
zeal of some learned Europeans has lately opened that source of in- 
formation, whence we derive the most interesting particulars of this 
extraordinary people, perhaps the first cultivators of the sciences, 
and the instructers of all the nations of antiquity. We shall briefly 
notice their singular division into casts, their civil policy, laws, prog- 
ress in the arts and sciences, and religion. 

2. The whole body of the people was divided into four orders, or 
casts. The highest cast, that of the Bramins, was devoted to religion 
and the cultivation of the sciences ; to the second belonged the pres- 
ervation of the state ; they were its sovereigns and its magistrates 
in peace, and its soldiers in war; the third w r ere the husbandmen and 
merchants; and the fourth the artisans, labourers, and servants. 
These are inseparable distinctions, and descend from generation to 
generation. Moreover, the individuals of each class follow invariably 
the profession of their forefathers. Every man, from his birth, 
knows the function allotted to him, and fulfils with ease and satisfac- 
tion the duty which he cannot avoid. Hence arises that permanence 
of manners and institutions which so singularly characterizes this 
ancient nation. 

3. This classification is an artificial arrangement, which could have 
originated only from the mind of a legislator among a polished peo- 
ple, completely obedient to government. It is therefore a proof of 
the highly civilized state of the Hindoo nation in the most remote 
periods of antiquity. 

4. The civil policy of the Hindoos is another proof of their ancient 
civilization. At the time of Alexander the great, India was divided 
into large and powerful kingdoms, governed by sovereigns whose do- 
minion was not absolute, but controlled by the superior authority of 
the Bramins. A system of feudalism has ever prevailed in India. 
The rights to land flow from the sovereign, to whom a certain duty 
is payable by the class of the husbandmen, who transmit their posses- 
sions to their children under the same tenure. Strabo and Diodorus 
remarked three classes of officers among the Indians : one class whose 
department was the regulation of agriculture, tanks, highways; 
another which superintended the police of the cities ; a third which 
regulated the military department. The same policy prevails at this 
day under the Hindoo princes. 

5. The jurisprudence of Hindostan is an additional proof of great 
antiquity and civilization. The Ayen-Akbery, and still more the 
compilation of Hindoo laws from the ancient Sanscrit records, made 
by order of Blr. Hastings, contain the jurisprudence of a refined and 
commercial people, among whom law had been a study and profes- 
sion. 

6. Many monuments exist in India of the advanced state of the use- 
ful and elegant arts in the remotest periods of antiquity. The aiv 
°A9nt pagodas, of vast extent and magnificence, whether cut in the 



MODERN HISTORY. 187 

solid rock, as in Elephanta and Saisette, or in the open air, as at 
Chilambrum and Seringham ; the sumptuous residences of the Brah- 
mins; and the ancient hill fortresses, constructed with prodigious 
strength and solidity, evince a great advancement in the arts. The 
resort of the most polished nations of antiquity to India for cotton 
cloths, fine linen, and works in metal and ivory, proves these manu 
factures to have been superior to all known at that time in Europe. 

7. The late translations from the Sanscrit of several ingenious 
compositions of high antiquity, as the dramatic piece Sacontala, the 
Hitopadesa, a series of moral apologues and fables, the Mahabaral r 
an epic poem, composed above 2,000 years before the Christian era, 
all concur in proof of a similar advancement in literature. We have 
reason to believe from such works as are of a philosophical nature, 
that there is scarcely a tenet of the Greek philosophy which has not 
been antecedently the subject of discussion among the Bramins of 
India. 

8. The numeral ciphers first introduced into Europe by the Ara- 
bians were, as those authors confess, borrowed from the Indians. 
Above a century ago, the French mathematicians evinced, by the 
evidence of a Siamese manuscript, containing tables for calculating 
the places of the heavenly bodies, the astonishing advancement 
made by this ancient people in the science of astronomy. A set of 
astronomical tables obtained lately from the Bramins by M. Gentil 
goes back to an era termed Calyougham, commencing 3,102 years 
before the birth of Christ These tables are used by the modern 
Bramins, who are quite ignorant of the principles on which they 
have been constructed. M. Bailly has proved that they are the 
same as those employed by the moderns, with which the Greeks and 
Chaldeans were utterly unacquainted. 

9. Lastly, from the religious opinions and worship of the Hindoos 
we must draw the same conclusion as from all the preceding facts. 
One uniform system of superstition pervades every religion of India, 
which is supported by the most sagacious policy, and by every thing 
that can excite the veneration of its votaries. The Bramins, elevat- 
ed above every class of men, and exclusively acquainted with the 
mysteries of that religion, which it is held impious for any other class 
to attempt to penetrate ; the implicit reliance on the authority of 
these Bramins; the ceremonies of their worship, adapted to im- 
press the imagination and to affect the passions ; all concurred to forti- 
fy this potent superstition, and to give its priests a supreme ascen 
dancy over the minds of the people. But those priests, enlightened 
as they were, rejected that false theology. Their writings demon- 
strate that they entertained rational and elevated conceptions with 
regard to the Supreme Being, and the support of the universe. 

10. On the whole, there is a high probability that India was the 
great school from which the most early polished nations of Europe 
derived their knowledge of arts, sciences, and literature. 

Persons who want more particular information respecting India 
are referred to Maurice's Indian Antiquities, and Tennant's Indian 
Recreations. 



188 MODERN HISTORY. 



SECTION XLVI11. 



OF CHINA AND JAPAN. 

1. As we proceed eastward in the survey of the Asiatic continent, 
.he great empire of China next solicits our attention. In the end of 
the tenth century, China, Persia, and the greater part of Ir \a were 
ruled by the Tartar descendants of Gengiscan. The Tartar family 
of Yven, who conquered China, made no change in its laws and sys- 
tem of government, which had been permanent from time immemo- 
rial. Of this family there reigned nine successive monarchs, without 
any attempt by the Chinese to throw off the Tartar yoke. The 
odious and contemptible character of the last of these sovereigns at 
length excited a rebellion, which, in 1,357, drove the Tartars from 
the throne; and the Chinese, for 276 years, obeyed their native 
princes. The Tartars, taking advantage of an insurrection in one of 
the provinces, invaded China in 1,641, and made an easy conquest. 
The emperor^ shut himself up in his palace, and, after putting to 
death all his family, finished the scene by hanging himself. The 
same Tartars occupy the throne of China at this day, and observe 
the same wise policy of maintaining inviolate the Chinese laws, poli- 
cy, and manners. Of these we shall give a brief account in the sub- 
sequent section. 

2. The emnire of Japan was discovered by the Portuguese about 
the middle ol the sixteenth century. The open and unsuspicious 
character of this industrious and polished people led them to en- 
courage the resort of foreigners to their ports ; and the Spaniards, 
after they had obtained the sovereignty of Portugal, carried on a 
most beneficial trade to the coasts of Japan. The emperor zeal- 
ously promoted this intercourse, till the insatiable ambition of the 
Spaniards gave him alarming conviction of its danger. Under the 
pretence of converting the Japanese from idolatry, a vast number 
of priests was sent into the country ; and one half of the people 
were speedily set at mortal variance with the other. It now be- 
came necessary to prohibit this work of conversion by an imperial 
edict. However a tree trade was allowed till 1,637, when a con- 
spiracy of the Spaniards for dethroning the emperor and seizmg the 
government was discovered. An edict was issued for the expulsion 
of all the Spaniards and Portuguese, who resisted till they were 
overpowered by force of arms. Since that period all the European 
nations have been excluded from the ports of Japan. The Dutch 
only, who had been the discoverers of the conspiracy of the Span- 
iards, are allowed the privilege of landing on one of the small islands, 
for the purposes of trade, after making oath that they are not of the 
Portuguese religion. 



MODERN HISTORY. 



SECTION XLIX. 

OF THE ANTIQUITY OF THE EMPIRE OF CHINA. STATE 
OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES, MANNERS, GOVERNMENT, 
LAWS. 

1. The antiquity of this vast empire, and the state of its govern- 
ment, laws, manners, and attainments in the arts and sciences, have 
furnished an ample field of controversy. Voltaire, Raynal, and other 
writers have given to the Chinese empire an immense antiquity, and 
a character ot such high civilization and knowledge of the sciences 
and arts at a very remote period, as to be utterly irreconcilable to the 
state and progress of man as described in the books of Moses. On 
the other hand, it is probable that the desire of invalidating those 
opinions has induced other writers of ability to go to an opposite ex- 
treme; to undervalue this singular people, and to give too little 
weight to any accounts which we have received either of the dura- 
tion of their empire, of the economy of their government and police, 
or of their attainments in the arts and sciences. Amidst this contra- 
riety of sentiments we shall endeavour to form such opinion as ap- 
pears most consonant to the truth. 

2. The panegyrists of the Chinese assert that their empire has 
subsisted above 4,000 years, without any material alteration in its 
laws, manners, language, or even fashion of dress ; in evidence of 
which they appeal to a series of eclipses, marking contemporary 
events, all accurately calculated, for 2,155 years before the birth of 
Christ. As it is easy to calculate eclipses backwards from the pres- 
ent day to any given period of time, it is thus possible to give to a 
history, fictitious from beginning to end, its chronology of real 
eclipses. This proof therefore amounts to nothing, unless it were 
likewise proved that all those eclipses were actually recorded at the 
time when they happened; but this neither has been nor can be 
done ; for it is an allowed fact, that there are no regular historical 
records beyond the third century before the christian era. The 

E resent Chinese are utterly ignorant of the motions of the celestial 
odies, and cannot calculate eclipses. The series mentioned has 
therefore in all probability been calculated by some of the Jesuits. 
to ingratiate themselves with the emperors, and flatter the national 
vanity. The Jesuits have presided in the tribunal of mathematics 
for above 200 years. 

3. But if the authentic annals of this empire go back even to the 
third century before Christ, and record at that time a high state of 
civilization, we must allow that the Chinese are an ancient and early 
polished people, and that they have possessed a singular constancy 
in their government, laws, and manners. Sir William Jones, no 
bigoted encomiast of this people, allows their great antiquity and 
early civilization, and, with much apparent probability, traces their 
origin from the Hindoos. He appeals to the ancient Sanscript records, 
which mention a migration of certain of the military class termed 
Chinas, from India to the countries east from Bengal. The stationa- 



190 MODERN HISTORY. 

4. The government of China is that of an absolute monarchy. 
The patriarchal system pervades the whole, and binds all the mem- 
bers of this vast empire in the strictest subordination. Every father 
is absolute in his family, and may inflict any punishment short oi 
death upon his children. The mandarin of the district is absolute, 
with the power of life and death over all its members: but a capital 
sentence cannot be inflicted without the emperor's approbation. 
The emperor's power is absolute over all the mandarins, and every 
subject of the empire. To reconcile the people to this despotic 
authority, the sovereign alone is entitled to relieve the wants of the 
poor, and to compensate public calamities, as well as the misfortunes 
of individuals. He is therefore regarded as the father of his people, 
and even adored as a benevolent divinity. 

5. Another circumstance which conciliates the people to their 
government is, that all honours in China are conferred according to 
merit, and that chiefly literary. The civil mandarins, who are the 
magistrates and judges, are appointed to office according to their 
measure of knowledge and mental endowments. No office or rank 
is hereditary, but may be aspired to by the meanest of the people. 
The penal laws of China are remarkably severe ; but their execu- 
tion may be remitted by the emperor. The judicial tribunals are 
regulated by a body of written laws of great antiquity, and founded 
on the basis of universal justice and equity. The emperor's opinion 
rarely differs from the sentences of those courts. One tribunal 
judges of the qualifications of the mandarins ; another regulates the 
morals of the people, and the national manners ; a third is the tribu- 
nal of censors, which reviews the laws, the conduct of the magis- 
trates and judges, and even that of the emperor himself. These tri 
bunals are filled by an equal number of Chinese and Tartars. 

6. It has been observed that the sciences have been stationary in 
this empire for many ages. They are at this day extremely low, 
though far beyond the attainments of a barbarous people. The 
language of China seems to oppose the prosecution of speculative 
researches. It has no regular inflections, and can with difficulty 
express abstract ideas. We have remarked the ignorance of the 
Chinese in mathematics and astronomy. Of physics they have no 
acquaintance beyond the knowledge of apparent facts. They never 
ascend to principles, nor form theories. Their knowledge of medi- 
cine is extremely limited, and is blended with the most contemptible 
superstition. Of anatomy they know next to nothing ; and in sur- 
gery they have never ventured to amputate a limb, nor to reduce a 
fracture. 

7. The state of the useful and elegant arts has been equally sta- 
tionary as that of the sciences. Many ages ago they had attained 
a certain point of advancement, which they have never exceeded. 
The Chinese are said to have manufactured glass for 2,000 years ; 
yet at this day it is inferior in transparency to the European, and is 
not used in their windows. They are reported to have known gun- 
powder from time immemorial ; but they never employed it in artil 
lery or fire-arms till they were taught by the Europeans. They are 
said to have invented printing in the age of Julius Caesar, yet they 
know not the use of moveable types, and print from blocks of wood. 
When first shown the use of the compass in sailing, they affirmed 
that they were well acquainted with it, but found no occasion to em- 
ploy it. The art of painting in China is mere mechanical imitation, 
without grace, expression, or even accuracy of proportions. Of the 



MODERN HISTORY. 191 

rules of perspective they have not the smallest idea. In sculpture, 
as in the figures of their idols, the Chinese artists seem to delight in 
distortion and deformity. Their music is not regulated by any prin- 
ciples of science. They have no semitones, and their instruments 
are imperfect and untunable. The Chinese architecture has variety, 
lightness, and sometimes elegance ; but has no grandeur, nor sym- 
metrical beauty. 

8. In some of the arts the Chinese have attained great excellence. 
In China agriculture is carried to the highest pitch of improvement. 
There is not a spot of waste land in the whole empire, nor any land 
which is not highly cultivated. The emperor himself is the chief 
of the husbandmen, and annually holds the plough with his own 
hands. From the high state of agriculture, and the modes of 
economizing food, is supported the astonishing population of 333 
millions, or 260 inhabitants to every square mile of the empire. 
The gardening of the Chinese, and their admirable embellishment 
of rural nature, have of late been the object of imitation in Europe, 
but with far inferior success. The manufacture of porcelain is an 
original invention of this people j and the Europeans, though ex- 
celling them in the form and ornament of the utensils, have never 
been able to attain the excellence of the material. 

9. The morals of the Chinese have furnished a subject both of 
praise and censure. The books of Confucius are said to contain an 
admirable system of morality. But the principles of morals have 
their foundation in human nature, and must, in theory, be every 
where the same. The moral virtues of a people are not to be esti- 
mated from the books of their philosophers. It is probable that the 
manners of the superior classes are in China, as elsewhere, much 
influenced by education and example. The morals of the lower 
classes, are said to be extremely loose, and their practices most dis- 
honest. They are regulated by no principle but selfish interest, 
aid restrained only by the fear of punishment. 

10. The religion of the Chinese is different in the different ranks 
ot society. There is no religion of the state. The emperor and 
the higher mandarins profess the belief of one Supreme Being, 
Changti, whom they worship by prayer and thanksgiving, without 
any mixture of idolatrous practices. They respect the lama of 
Thibet as the high-priest or prophet of this religion. A prevalent 
sect is that of Tao-sse, who believe in the power of magic, the agency 
of spirits, and the divination of future events. A third is the sect of 
Fo, derived from India, whose priests are the Bonzes, and whose 
fundamental doctrine is, that all things rose out of nothing, and must 
finally return to nothing ; that all animals are first to undergo a series 
of transmigrations ; and that as man's chief happiness is to approach 
as near as possible to a state of annihilation in this life, absolute idle- 
ness is more laudable than occupation of any kind. A variety of 
hideous idols is worshipped by this sect. 

11. The Chinese have their sacred books entitled Kings ; as the 
Yking, Chovking, &c. ; which, among some good moral precepts, con- 
tain much mystery, childish superstition, and absurdity. These are 
chiefly resorted to for the divining of future events, which seems the 
ultimatum of research among the Chinese philosophers. The obser 
vation of the heavenly bodies is made for that purpose alone. The 
changes of weather, the performance or omission of certain cere- 
monies, the occurrence of certain events in particular times and 
places, are all believed to have their influence on futurity, and are 



192 MODERN HISTORY. 

therefore carefully observed and recorded. The rules by which 
those omens are interpreted are said to have been prescribed by the 
great Confucius, the father of the Chinese philosophy, 500 years be- 
fore the christian era. 

12. We conclude, on the whole, that the Chinese are a very re- 
markable people ; that their government, law*, policy, and knowl- 
edge of the arts and sciences, exhibit unquestionable proofs of great 
antiquity and early civilization ; that the extraordinary measure of 
duration assigned to their empire by some modern writers rests on 
no solid proofs ; that their government, laws, manners, arts, and 
scientific attainments, are not deserving of that superlative praise 
which has been bestowed on them. 



SECTION L. 

M. BAILLY'S THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SCIENCES 
AMONG THE NATIONS OF INDIA. 

1 . The striking resemblance in many points of character between 
the Chinese and the ancient Egyptians, has led to the conjecture, 
either that they were originally the same people, one being a col- 
ony of the other, or have had, at some remote period, such inter- 
course, either by conquest or by commerce, as to occasion a recipro- 
cal communication of manners and the knowledge of arts and sciences. 
M. de Mairan has remarked the following points of similarity. The 
Egyptians and the Chinese had the same permanence of manners, 
and abhorrence of innovations ; they were alike remarkable for the 
respect entertained by children to their parents ; they were equally 
averse to war ; they had the same general superficial knowledge of 
the arts and sciences, without the ability to make great attainments ,* 
they both, in the most ancient times, used hieroglyphics ; the Egyp- 
tians had a solemn festival, called the feast of the lights; the Chinese 
have the feast of the la7ite?-ns; the features of the Chinese are said to 
resemble the ancient Egyptian statues ; certain characters engraven 
on an Egyptian bust of lsis were found to belong to the Chinese lan- 
guage. 

2. M. Bailly has taken a wider range of observation, and from a 
review of the manners, customs, opinions, and attainments of the 
Indians, Persians, Chinese, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, has discovered 
many circumstances of similarity between all those nations, equally 
remarkable as the foregoing. He has thence formed the singular 
hypothesis, that the knowledge common to all those nations has been 
derived from the same original source, a most ancient and highly 
cultivated people of Asia, of which every trace is now extinct. If we 
find, says he, in the scattered huts of peasants, fragments interspersed 
of sculptured columns, we conclude for certain that they are not the 
work of the rude peasants who reared those huts, but that they arc 
the remains of a magnificent building,- the work of able architects, 
though we discover no other traces of the existence of that building, 
and cannot ascertain its precise situation. 

3. The sciences and arts of the Chinese have been stationary for 
2,000 years. The people seem never to have availed themselves 
of the lights of their ancestors. They are like the inhabitants of a 
country recently discovered by a polished people, who have taught 



MODERN HISTORY. 193 

them some of their arts, and left their instruments among them. 
The knowledge which they possess, seems to have been imported, 
and not of original growth, for it has never been progressive. 

4. The Chaldeans were an enlightened people at the commence- 
ment of the Babylonish empire, 2,000 years before the Christian era. 
They were astronomers, and understood the revolutions of the ce- 
lestial bodies. The Chaldeans were probably the remains of this 
indent people. The Bramins of India believe in the unity of God, 
and the immortality of the soul ; but with these sublime tenets they 
intermix childish absurdities. They derived the former from wise 
instructers ; the latter were the fruit of their own ignorance. The 
Sanscrit, a copious and elegant language, and the vehicle of all the 
Indian knowledge and philosophy, has been a dead tongue for thou- 
sands of years, and is intelligible only to a few of the Bramins. It 
was probably the language of that great ancient people. 

5. The coincidence or similarity of customs concurs to establish 
the belief of an original nation. The custom of libation was com- 
mon to the Tartars and Chinese, and to the Greeks and Romans. 
All the Asiatic nations had festivals of the nature of the Roman satur- 
nalia. The tradition of the deluge is diffused among all those nations. 
The tradition of the giants attacking heaven is equally general. 
The doctrine of the metempsychosis was common to the Egyptians, 
Greeks, Indians, Persians, Tartarians, and Chinese. The religion of 
all those nations is founded on the profound but erroneous doctrine 
of the two principles, a universal soul pervading all nature, and 
inert matter on which it acts. A conformity in a true doctrine is no 
proof of mutual communication or concert ; but it is ingeniously re- 
marked, that a conformity in a false doctrine comes very near to such 
a proof. 

6. The Egyptians, Chaldeans, Indians, Persians, and Chinese, all 
placed their temples fronting the east, to receive the first rays of the 
sun. Hence the worship of the sun has been the religion ot the an- 
cient people from which these are descended. All these nations had 
a cycle, or period of sixty years, for regulating their chronology. 
They all divided the circle into 360 degrees; the zodiac into twelve 
signs ; and the week into seven days. The Chinese, Indians, and 
Egyptians designed the seven days of the week by the names of the 
<*even planets ranged in the same order. The long measures of the 
indent nations had all one common origin. 

7. These singular coincidences, says M. Bailly, can be exclained 
only upon three suppositions : 1, that there was a free communica- 
tion between all those ancient nations ; 2, that those circumstances 
of coincidence are so founded in human nature, that the most un* 
connected nations could not fail to hit upon them ; or, 3, that they 
have been all derived from a common source. He rejects the two 
former suppositions, as contrary, in his opinion, to fact, and adopts 
the last. 

8. The precise situation of this great ancient people, M. Bailly does 
not pretend to fix with certainty; but offers probable reasons for 
conjecturing that it was about the 49th or 50th degree of north lati- 
tude, in the southern regions of Siberia. Many of the European 
and Asiatic nations attribute their origin to that quarter, which thence 
appears to have been extremely populous. Nitre, a production 
from animal substances, is more abundant there than in any other 
region. The observations of the rising of the stars, collected by 
Ftolcmv, must have been made in a climate where the longest day 

R 25 



194 MODERN HISTORY. 

was sixteen hours, which corresponds to the latitude of 50 degrees. 
No European nation in that latitude understood astronomy in those 
early periods. The veneration of the Indians and Chinese for the 
Lama of Thibet is a proof that the religion of those nations originat- 
ed in that quarter. 

9. But does that region exhibit any traces of having been ever 
inhabited by a polished people ? Here the theory of M. Bailly seems 
to be least supported by proof. He observes, that ancient mines 
have been discovered in those parts of Siberia, which have, been 
wrought to great extent in a period beyond all record or tradition , 
that ancient sepulchres have been found, in which there were orna- 
ments of gold of skilful workmanship ; but the facts specified are so 
few as to warrant no positive inference. 

10. This theory is an amusing specimen of the author's ingenu- 
ity ; but it has not the force to draw our assent to his conclusions. 
We have noticed it as specifying many curious facts relative to the 
manners and attainments of the ancient nations, and as furnishing 
strong evidence of the common origin of mankind. The nations 
above mentioned, though many of them remote from one another, 
were all connected, as links of a chain, by proximity ; whence it is 
easy to conceive that knowledge should diverge from a centre io 
a very distant circumference. M. Bailly has given no reasonable 
ground for fixing that centre in the position which he has assigned 
to it. 

SECTION LI. 

REIGN OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN. REVOLUTION OF THE 
NETHERLANDS, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REPUBLIC 
OF HOLLAND. 

1. After a short survey of the Asiatic kingdoms, we return to the 
history of Europe in the sixteenth century. 

In the time of Philip II., the successor of Charles V., the balance 
of power in Europe was sustained by Spain, France, England, and 
Germany, all at this time highly flourishing and respectable, either 
from the talents of their sovereigns, or their internal strength. Eliz- 
abeth, Henry II., and Philip II., were all acute and able politicians ; 
though the policy of Philip partook more of selrisn craft, and had 
less of the manly and heroic, than that of either of his rival mon- 
archs. Philip was at this time sovereign of Spain, the Two Sicilies, 
Milan, and the Netherlands. He had likewise, for a few years, the 
power of England at his command, by his marriage with Mary, the 
elder sister and predecessor of Elizabeth. 

2. Pope Paul IV., jealous of the power of Philip, formed an alli- 
ance with Henry II. of France to deprive the Spaniards of Milan 
and the Two Sicilies. Phi4ip, with the aid of the English, defeated 
the French at St. Quintin in Picardy, and hoped from this signal vic- 
tory, to force the allies into a peace ; but the duke of Guise recov- 
ered the spirits of the French, by the taking of Calais from the Eng- 
lish, which they had now possessed for two hundred years. Anoth- 
er great victory, however, obtained by Philip near Gravelines, 
brought on the treaty of Catteau-Cambresis in 1,559, by which the 
French surrendered to Spain no less than eighty-nine fortified towns 
in the Low Countries and in Italy. 



MODERN HISTORY. 195 

3. Philip, now at ease from foreign disturbances, began to be dis- 
quieted on the score of religion. An intolerant bigot by nature, he 
resolved to extirpate every species of heresy from his dominions. 
The Netherlands, an assemblage of separate states, were all subject 
to Philip, under various titles ; and he had conferred the government 
of Holland, Zealand, Friesland, and Utrecht, on William, prince of 
Orange, a count of the German empire. The Lutheran and Calvin 
istic opinions had made great progress in those quarters ; and Philip, 
determining to repress them, established the inquisition with plenary 

Eowers, created new bishops, and prepared to abrogate the ancient 
iws, and give the provinces a new political institution. These inno- 
vations created alarm and tumult; and the duke of Alva was sent into 
Flanders to enforce implicit submission. 

4. The inquisition began its bloody work, and many of the prin- 
cipal nobility of the provinces were its victims. The minds of the 
people were completely alienated, and a chief was only wanting to 
give union to their measures. The prince of Orange, who was 
under sentence of the inquisition, found no difficulty to raise an army; 
and having easily reduced some of the most important garrisons, 
he was proclaimed stadtholder of Holland and Zealand in 1,570. 
Eighteen thousand persons perished by the hands of the executioner 
in the course of the duke of Alva's government, which was of five 
years' duration. His place was supplied by Requesens, a man of hu- 
manity, but bound to obey his inhuman master, who, on the death of 
Requesens, sent his own brother don John of Austria, to endeavour 
to regain the revolted states ; but the attempt was fruitless. The 
whole seventeen provinces had suffered alike from the tyranny of 
their sovereign ; but particular jealousies prevented a general union, 
and only seven of them asserted their independence, by a solemn 
treaty formed at Utrecht, on the 23d of January, 1,579,- by which it 
was agreed that they should defend their liberties as one united 
republic ; that they should jointly determine in matters of peace and 
war, establish a general legislative authority, and maintain a liberty 
of conscience in matters of religion. These seven united provinces 
are, Guelderland, Holland, Zealand, Friesland, Utrecht, Overyssel, 
and Groningen. William prince of Orange was declared their chief 
magistrate, general, and admiral, by the title of Stadtholder. 

5. Philip vented his indignation by a proscription of the prince of 
Orange, offering 25,000 crowns for his head ; and he compassed his 
revenge ; for this illustrious man was cut off by an assassin in 1,584. 
His son Maurice was elected stadtholder in his room, and sustained 
his important office with great courage and ability. With a slender 
aid from Elizabeth of England, who delighted to traverse the plans of 
Philip, this infant commonwealth accomplished and secured its inde- 
pendence, which it maintained till its recent subjugation 

6. The other ten provinces, whose discontents were expressed 
only by murmur and complaint, were soothed by a new charter from 
Philip confirming their privileges; while at the same time he took 
every possible measure to prevent any attentat on their part to 
throw off the yoke. 



V 



196 MODERN HISTORY. 



SECTION LI1. 

OF THE CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED 
PROVINCES.^ 

1. The treaty of confederation of the Seven United Provinces, 
framed in 1,579, and solemnly renewed in 1,583, is declared to be, 
by its nature, indissoluble. Each province thereby preserved its 
own laws, magistrates, sovereignty, and independence. They form, 
however, one body politic, having renounced the right of making 
separate alliances or treaties, and established a general council, with 
power of assembling the states, and regulating the common affairs of 
the republic. The assembly of the states-general was originally held 
only twice a year, but became afterwards a perpetual council. 

2. In all matters which regard not the general interest of the na- 
tion, each of the states or provinces is in itself a republic, governed 
by its own laws and magistrates, and possessing a supreme legislative 
authority. The deputies from each of the towns form the council of 
the province, in which is vested its separate government ; and these 
deputies are regulated by the instructions of their constituents. The; 
votes of the majority of deputies decide in the provincial council iv» 
all matters which regard not the general interest of the nation 

3. The great council of the states-general always met in assembly 
at the Hague, and is composed of the deputies from the seven prov- 
inces, of which Holland sends three, Zealand and Utrecht two, and 
the others one ; each deputy being regulated by the council of his 
province. A majority of voices is here decisive, unless in the great 
questions of peace, war, and alliance, in which unanimity is requisite. 
The disadvantage of this constitution is the delay and difficulty in 
the execution of public measures. All the towns and all the nobles 
of a province must deliberate and instruct their deputy, before the 
states-general can take the matter under consideration. This, great 
defect is partly corrected by the power and influence of the stadt- 
holder. 

4. The stadtholder is commander in chief of the sea and land 
forces, and disposes ot all the military employments. He presides 
over all the courts of justice, and has the power of pardoning crimes. 
He appoints the magistrates of the towns, from a list made by them- 
selves ; receives and names ambassadors, and is charged with the ex- 
ecution of the laws. He is supreme arbiter in all differences between 
the provinces, cities, or other members of the state. 

5. William, the first stadtholder, did not abuse these high powers ; 
nor did his successors, Maurice and Henry-Frederick. But under 
William II. the states became jealous of an exorbitant authority in 
their chief magistrate, and on his death the office was for some time 
abolished. In that interval the republic was almost annihilated by 
the arms of Lewis XIV. ; and, sensible of their error, they restored 
the office of stadtholder in the person of William III., who retrieved 
the fortunes and honour of his country. In gratitude for his services, 
the dignity was made hereditary in his family, a solecism in the gov 
ernment of a republic. On the death of William without issue, the 
office was once more abolished for twenty years, when it was again 
restored, declared hereditary in the family of Orange, and descendi- 
ble even to the issue of a daughter. The only restrictions are, that 



MODERN HISTORY. 197 

the succeeding prince shall be of the protestant religion, and neither 
king nor elector of the German empire. 



SECTION LIII. 
REIGN ON PHILIP II. CONTINUED. 

1. The loss of the Netherlands was in some degree compensated 
to Philip II. by the acquisition of the kingdom of Portugal. Muley 
Mahomet, king of Fez and Morocco, dethroned by his uncle Muley 
Moluc, solicited the aid of don Sebastian king of Portugal to regain 
his throne. Sebastian landed with an army in Africa, but was de- 
feated by the Moors and slain ; and the contending Moorish princes 
perished! in the same engagement. Sebastian was succeeded by his 
grand-uncle don Henry, who died after a reign of two 5; ears. The 
competitors for the crown were don Antonio prior of Crato, and 
Philip II., paternal and maternal uncles of the last sovereign. Philip 
defeated his rival in a decisive engagement at sea, and, without fur- 
ther opposition, took possession of the throne of Portugal, 1,580. 

2. Elizabeth of England had warmly espoused the cause of the 
revolted Netherlands, and her admiral sir Francis Drake had taken 
some of the Spanish settlements in America. To avenge these in- 
juries, the invincible armada, of 150 ships of war, 27,000 men, and 
3,000 pieces of cannon, was equipped by Philip for the invasion of 
England. The English fleet, of 108 ships, attacked them in the 
night, and burnt and destroyed a great part of the squadron. A 
storm, which drove them on the rocks and sands of Zealand, com- 
pleted their discomfiture, and only 50 shattered vessels, with 6,000 
men returned to Spain, 1,588. 

3. The restless spirit of Philip II. was engaged at the same time in 
the reduction of the Netherlands, the project for the invasion oi 
England, and the dismembering of the kingdom of France. The 
last scheme was as ineffectual as the two former. It was defeated at 
once by the conversion of Henry IV. to the catholic religion. The 
policy of Philip had nothing in it great or generous. His restless 
ambition was fitted to embroil Europe ; but he had not the judgment 
to turn the distresses which he occasioned to his own advantage. 
In his own kingdoms, as in his domestic life, he was a gloomy and in- 
human tyrant. Yet, from the variety and magnitude of his designs, 
the power by which they were supported, and the splendour of his 
dominion, the character of Spain was high and respectable in the 
scale of the nations of Europe. 



SECTION LIV. 

STATE OF FRANCE IN THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CEN- 
TURY ; UNDER HENRY II., FRANCIS II., CHARLES IX., HENRY 
ID., AND HENRY IV- 

1. The reformed religion had made the greater progress in 
France from the impolitic persecution which H sustained from 
Henry II., the son and successor of Francis I., who, though he aided 
the protectants of Germany in resisting the despotism of Charles V., 
showed no* mercy to their brethren in nis own kingdom. 



198 MODERN HISTORY. 

2. On the death of Henry II. the conspiracy of Amboise was plan 
ned by the prince of Conde, for the destruction of the duke of Guise, 
who ruled the kingdom under Francis II., and to whose intolerance 
and cruelty the protestants attributed all their calamities. Guise 
owed his ascendancy chiefly to the marriage of his niece, Mary 
queen of Scots with the young monarch ; and the detection of this 
conspiracy, the massacre of its principal leaders, and the barbarous 
punishment of all who partook in it, while they confirmed his power, 
served only to increase the rancour of the contending parties. 

3. Francis 11. died after a reign of one year, 1,560, and was suc- 
ceeded by his brother Charles IX., a boy of ten years of age. The 
queen-mother, Catharine de Medicis, who had no other principle but 
the love of power, was equally jealous of the influence of the 
Condes and the Guises. An ecclesiastical assembly, held by her de- 
sire at Poissy, gave toleration to the protestants to exercise their 
worship through all France, without^ the walls of the towns. The 
zeal or the imprudence of the duke of Guise infringed this ordinance, 
and both parties flew to arms. The admiral Coligni commanded the 
troops of the protestants, who were aided by 10,000 Germans from 
the Palatinate. Philip of Spain, to increase the disorders, sent an 
army to the aid of the catholics. 

4. The horrors of civil war were aggravated by murders and 
assassinations. The duke of Guise was the victim of the frantic zeal 
of an enthusiast. After many desperate engagements, with various 
success, a treacherous peace was agreed to by the catholics ; and 
Coligni, with the chiefs of the protestant party, were invited to 
court, and received by the queen-mother and her son with the most 
extraordinary marks of favour : among the rest Henry of Navarre, 
to whom the young monarch had given his sister in marriage. Such 
were the preparatives to the infernal massacre of St. Bartholomew. 
On the night of the 23d of August, 1,572, at the ringing of the matin 
bell, the catholics made a general massacre of all the protestants 
throughout the kingdom of France. Charles IX., a monster of 
cruelty assisted in the murder of his own subjects. 

5. Amid those horrors Henry duke of Anjou, brother of Charles 
IX., was elected king of Poland ; but had scarcely taken possession 
of his throne, when he was called to that of France by the death 
of its execrable sovereign, 1,574. The weakness of the new mon 
arch, Henry III., was unfit to compose the disorders of the kingdom. 
Equally bigoted and profligate, he became the scorn of his subjects, 
and the dupe of the contending factions. 

6. The protestant party was now supported by the prince o£' 
Conde and young Henry of Navarre, descended from Robert of 
Bourbon, a younger son of Lewis IX. The duke of Aiencon, the 
king's brother, had likewise joined their party. The catholics., to 
accumulate their strength, formed a bond of union, termed the lect{r ue ^ 
nominally for defence of the state and its religion, but in reality for 
usurping all the powers of government, and suppressing the protes- 
tant faith. Of this dangerous association Henry III., with the weakest 
policy, declared himself the head, and thus the avowed enemy of 
one half of his subjects. He saw his error when too late, and, 
dreading the designs ©f the duke of Guise, and his brother the cardinal 
of Lorraine, whose authority had superseded his own, he base ly rid 
himself of his fears by procuring their assassination. This vicious 
and contemptible tyrant, after a reign of fifteen years, was assas f .<iniitc4 



MODERN HISTORY. 19 

by Jaques Clement, a jacobin monk, from the frenzy of fanaticism, 
1,589. 

7. The next heir of the crown was Henry of Navarre, who had 
been educated a protestant by his mother, the daughter of Henry 
d' Albert king of Navarre. At the age of sixteen he had been declared 
head of the party of the Huguenots ; his uncle the prince of Conde 
and the admiral Coligni acting as his lieutenants. His first military 
enterprises were unsuccessful. Invited to Paris, at the peace ot 
1,572, to marry the sister of Charles IX., he narrowly escaped from 
the massacre of St. Bartholomew, but remained three years a prison- 
er. On the death of Charles he again took the field against the 
army of the league, which he defeated in the battle of Coutras, 
1,587, and still more signally in that of Arques, 1,589. After the 
death of Henry 111., he won the celebrated battle of lvry ; and, 
being acknowledged sovereign of France by all but the party of the 
league, then in possession of Paris, he laid siege to the city, which 
must have capitulated if Philip II. had not sent succours. Religion was 
the sole cause of the disunion of France, and the only obstacle to 
the acknowledgment of Henry's title by the greater part of his sub- 
jects. By the earnest persuasion of Rosni (duke of Sully), a protes- 
tant, Henry was prevailed on to declare himself a catholic. He ab- 
jured at St. Denis, and was crowned king at Chartres, 1,594. He 
soon after took possession of Paris ; but it took him several years, 
both of war and negotiation, before he gained the whole of his king- 
dom, exhausted as it was, and ruined by civil discord. 

8. The subsequent life of this excellent prince was devoted to the 
reparation of those misfortunes. After forcing Philip II. to conclude 
the advantageous peace of Vervins, 1,598, his whole attention was 
bestowed on the improvement of his kingdom, by reforming its laws, 
regulating, its finances, encouraging agriculture and manufactures, 
enlarging and embellishing the cities, and finally by successfully 
reconciling the partisans of the contending religions. In all his bene- 
ficial schemes, he found an able assistant in his minister the duke of 
Sully, who has beautifully depicted the life and character of his mas- 
ter. In his memoirs we see not only the great designs, but the pri- 
vate virtues, the engaging and amiable manners of this illustrious 
man, who while he was the arbiter of the contending powers ol 
Europe, was the indulgent father of a happy people. 

9. The period of the splendour and happiness of France was ol 
short duration. Henry IV., worthy to be immortal, was assassinated 
at the age of fifty-seven, May 4, 1,610, by Ravaillac, an insane fanat- 
ic. At the time of his death, he meditated the great project of a 
perpetual peace between the states of Europe, a design highly char- 
acteristic of the benevolent mind of its author. But the weaknesses of 
mankind, and the impossibility of reasoning with nations as with wise 
individuals, must certainly have rendered this design impracticable at 
that period. 



SECTION LV. 

HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND OF SCOTLAND IN THE REIGNS 
OF ELIZABETH AND MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 

1. Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII., by Anna Bullen, succeeded 
to the throne on the death of her sister Mary, 1,558 ; and England 



200 MODERN HISTORY. 

attained a high degree of splendour, under the rule of this great and 
politic princess, whose talents enabled her to pursue the true interests 
of her people, while her vigorous and intrepid mind led her to take 
an important part in maintaining the balance of power in Europe. 
While she encouraged at home every useful art and manufacture, 
she colonized a great part of North America, supported the infant 
republic of Holland against its tyrannical enemy, humbled the pride 
of Spain in the defeat of its invincible armada, and assisted Henry IV. 
in the recovery of his kingdom. It was her fortune to have the aid 
of most able ministers, and her merit to place her confidence in their 
counsels. 

2. If Elizabeth had been equally endowed with the virtues of the 
heart as with the powers of the mind, she would have shone the 
most illustrious character in the annals of modern Europe. Her 
conduct to her cousin Mary queen of Scots has fixed an indelible 
stain on her character. Mary, the daughter of James V., and great 
grand-daughter of Henry VII., educated in France, and married, 
when very young, to the dauphin, afterwards Francis II., had im- 
prudently assumed the arms and title of queen of England, by the 
persuasion of her maternal uncles the Guises. The pretence was 
the illegitimacy of Elizabeth, declared by Henry VIII., on his divorce 
from Anna Builen. This false step laid the foundation of all the 
miseries of the queen of Scots. 

3. The reformation was at this time going forward in Scotland 
with the most ardent zeal. The earls of Argyle, Morton, Glencairn, 
and others, its chief promoters, had, by their own authority, suppress- 
ed the worship of the mass over a great part of the kingdom. 
The catholic bishops, by an ill-judged persecution of the reformers, 
greatly increased the number of their proselytes. They began to 
muster their strength, and, headed by John Knox, a disciple of Cal- 
vin, a virtuous man, but of the most furious and intemperate zeal, 
threw down the altars and images, expelled the priests, and demol- 
ished the churches and monasteries. The protestants were now 
acting in arms, and in open defiance of government ; and the queen • 
mother, Mary of Guise, attempted, by the aid of French troops, to 
reduce her subjects to submission. They applied for aid to Elizabeth 
the protestant queen of England, who sent an army and a fleet to their 
assistance. The death of the queen-mother wasfollowed by a capit- 
ulation, by which it was agreed that the French should evacuate 
Scotland, and that Mary should renounce all pretension to the crown of 
England. The protestant religion, under presbyterian forms, was 
now established in the room of the catholic. 

5. In this situation of Scotland, Mary, at the age of eighteen, on 
the death of her mother, and of her husband Francis II., returned 
to her hereditary kingdom ; having fortunately escaped an English 
fleet, which Elizabeth had despatched to take her prisoner on her 
passage. Her misfortunes began from that hour. Her protestant 
subjects regarded their catholic queen with abhorrence, and looked 
up to her enemy Elizabeth as their support and defender. That 
artful princess had secured to her interest the very men on whom 
the unsuspecting Mary placed her utmost confidence, her bastard 
brother the earl of Murray, the earl of Morton, and secretary Leth 
ington. The views of Murray aimed at nothing less than his sister's 
crown, and the obstacles which opposed his criminal ambition served 
only to render his attempts more daring and flagitious. 

5. The marriage of Mary with her cousin lord Darnley, son of the 



MODERN HISTORY. 201 

earl of Lennox, who stood in the same relation to Elizabeth, was not 
agreeable to that princess. Encouraged by Elizabeth's ministers, 
Randolph and Cecil, Murray formed a conspiracy to seize and impris- 
on Mary, to put to death her husband, and usurp the government ; 
and on the detection of his designs, attempted to support them by 
open rebellion. Defeated, exiled, pardoned, and loaded with benefits 
by his injured sovereign, he persevered in the same atrocious pur- 
poses, till he at length accomplished them. 

6. The spouse of Mary had incurred her resentment by his vices 
and follies. Taking advantage of the weakness of his mind, Mur- 
ray, Morton, and Lethington, had rendered him jealous of the par- 
tiality of Mary for her foreign secretary, the aged Rizzio, and en- 
gaged him in the barbarous act of murdering this ill-fated wretch 
at the feet of the queen, to whose garment? he clung for protection. 
The purpose of this shocking outrage was to procure the abortion 
of Mary, then big with child, and possibly her death ; or, if she 
should survive, to alienate completely her affections from her hus- 
band, and thus to render her suspected of the design which they 
had projected of cutting him off by assassination. In the latter pur- 
pose they succeeded. The house which Darnley inhabited was blown 
up by gunpowder : his body was found strangled near the place, and 
a report immediately prevailed, that Mary had been accessory to his 
murder. 

7. A most imprudent step, to which she was conducted by the 
same band of traitors, gave countenance to this suspicion. At the 
earnest recommendation of Morton and some of her chief nobility, 
she married the earl of Bothwell, a man openly stigmatized as erne 
of the murderers of her husband. He had, it is true, been absolved 
■»n trial for that crime, and had by force made himself master of her 
person. The plans of Murray and his associates, successful to the 
utmost of their wishes, were now ripe for consummation. On the 
pretext of the queen's guilt of murder and adultery, she was confined 
by Murray in the castle of Lochleven, and there compelled to resign 
her crown into the hands of her unnatural brother, who was to govera 
the kingdom as regent during the minority of her infant son, now 
proclaimed king by the title of James VI., 1,567. Bothwell escaped 
beyond sea, and died in Denmark. 

3. A great part of the nation reprobated those infamous proceed- 
ings. Mary escaped from her confinement, and at the head of an 
army gave battle to the rebels at Langside ; but, being defeated, she 
fled for shelter to the north of England. Elizabeth, who had secretly 
encouraged all the machinations of her enemies, had now gained a 
great object of her ambition ; she had in her hands a hated rival, and, 
by her support of Murray and his party, the absolute command oi 
the kingdom of Scotland. Yet policy required some show of 
friendship and humanity to the queen of Scots, who claimed, as a 
suppliant, her protection and aid. She professed her desire to do 
her justice, but first required that she should clear herself of the 
crimes alleged against her. To this Mary agreed, with the intrepid- 
ity of conscious innocence. In a conference held for that purpose, 
Murray openly stood forth as the accuser of his sister and queen, 
appealing to certain letters said to have been written by her to Both* 
well, plainly intimating her guilt. Copies of these letters were pro- 
duced. Mary demanded the originals, boldly declaring them to be 
the forgeries of her enemies ; but they were never produced. She 
retorted on Murray and Morton the charge of Darnley's murder, 



202 MODERN HISTORY. 

and the conference was broken off at the command ot the queen of 
England, who detained Mary in close imprisonment. 

9. The ungenerous policy of Elizabeth was condemned by her 
own subjects. The duke of Norfolk, the first of her nobility, and, 
though a protestant, favoured by the catholic party m England, 
secretly projected to marry the queen of Scots. The discovery of 
his views having given alarm to Elizabeth, brought that ill-fated 
nobleman to the block, and hastened the doom of the unfortunate 
Mary. Worn out with the miseries of her confinement, she private- 
ly solicited the aid of foreign princes for her deliverance. Her 
cause was espoused by all the catholics of England ; and some of the 
most intemperate of these had formed a plot to deliver her from 
captivity, and to place her on the throne, by the murder of Eliza 
beth. This dangerous conspiracy was discovered, and its authors 
deservedly suffered death. The schemes of Mary for her own de- 
liverance were held presumptive of her acquiescence in the whole of 
the plot. Though an independent sovereign, she was brought to 
trial before a foreign tribunal which had already decreed her fate ; 
and, being condemned to suffer death, she was beheaded at Fother- 
ingay castle, 1,587, in the forty-iifth year of her age, and the nine 
teenth of her captivity in England. Previously to this event, Murray 
had fallen the victim of the private revenge of a gentleman whom he 
had injured ; Lethington poisoned himself in prison, to escape the 
sentence of his enemies ; and Morton, some time regent of the king- 
dom, was afterwards tried and suffered death for his concern in the 
murder of Darnley. 

10. We have mentioned the formidable preparations of Philip II. 
for the invasion of England, and their disastrous issue in the total 
destruction of the invincible armada. The English, in their turn, 
made descents on the Spanish coasts ; and the glory of the nation 
was nobly sustained by those great admirals, Raleigh, Howard. 
Drake, Cavendish, and Hawkins. The earl of Essex distinguished 
himself in those expeditions, and won the favour of Elizabeth, both 
by his prowess and personal accomplishments. The death of Lei- 
cester, her former favourite, and of her minister Burleigh left Essex 
unrivalled in her affections, and of chief authority in the direction of 
her councils. Haughty, and impatient of control, he disgusted the 
nobles ; and his failure in quelling a rebellion in Ireland gave them 
ground to undermine him in the favour of his sovereign. In the mad- 
ness of inordinate ambition, he proposed to possess himself of the 
person of the queen, and compel her to remove his enemies, and 
acquiesce in all his measures. This treasonable enterprise brought 
him to the scaffold, 1,600. 

1 1. From that time Elizabeth fell into profound melancholy, and soon 
after died in the seventieth year of her age, 1,603, having named for 
her successor James VI. of Scotland. Her talents were great, and 
the firmness of her mind was unequalled ; but her private char- 
acter was tarnished by cruelty, hypocrisy, and an insatiable desire 
of admiration. Her maxims of government were despotic, and she 
had little regard for the liberties of her people, or the privileges of 
her parliaments, to whom she never allowed the liberty of disputing 
her commands. The actual government of England in those days 
was little different from an absolute monarchy. 



MODERN HISTORY. 90s 



SECTION LVI. 



HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN IN THE REIGNS OF JAMES I, 
AND CHARLES I 

1. James VI. of Scotland succeeded by hereditary right to the 
throne of England, thus uniting the two crowns ; a prince of consid- 
erable learning and talents, but of little vigour of mind or political 
energy. He became unpopular from his notions of an uncontrollable 
prerogative, to which unwisely proclaiming his title, he provoked 
his subjects to question it. The current of public opinion was now 
strongly turned to an extension of the rights of the subject, and to a 
retrenchment of the powers of the crown ; and during this reign the 
seeds were sown of that spirit of resistance on the part of the peo- 
ple, which was destined in the next to overturn the constitution. 

2. Domestic events were such as chiefly distinguished the reign 
of James I. A conspiracy was discovered in 1,603 for subverting 
the government, and placing the king's cousin, Arabella Stuart, on 
the throne, in which the lords Cobham and Grey, and Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh were principally concerned. The two former were pardoned, 
and Raleigh was condemned, but reprieved. On the ground of his 
infringement of the peace with Spain, by unwarrantably attacking 
one of her American settlements, "he was beheaded on his former 
sentence, after an interval of fifteen years. 

3. Another conspiracy followed, of a still more dangerous nature. 
the gunpowder treason ; a plot of the catholics to destroy at one 
blow the king and the whole body of the parliament, 1,604. It was 
discovered from a circumstance of private friendship, on the very 
eve of its accomplishment; and the principal conspirators suffered 
capital punishment. The public indignation now raged against the 
catholics ; and the humanity of James, which sought to mitigate this 
fury, was as ungenerously as absurdly construed into a favour which 
he entertained for their religious principles. 

4. It was a peculiar weakness of the king to attach himself to 
undeserving favourites. Such was Carre earl of Somerset, who had 
no other recommendation but a handsome person, and who, after 
several years' exercise of all the insolence of power, fell into dis- 
grace, on conviction of his concern in an infamous murder. His 
place was supplied by Villiers, afterwards duke of Buckingham, a 
man devoid of every talent of a minister and odious to all ranks 
of the state. He planned a journey cf Charles prince of Wales into 
Spain to court the infanta, and by his folly and insolence frustrated 
the treaty on the brink of its conclusion. 

5. Elizabeth, the daughter of James, was married to the protestant 
elector Palatine, who was dispossessed of his electorate by the empe- 
ror Ferdinand II., for imprudently accepting the crown of Bohemia, 
till then an appanage of the empire. James was urged by parlia- 
ment to a war in defence of his son-in-law, which touched the nation 
both as a point of honour and as the cause of the protestant interest. 
He sent a feeble armament, which was of no service, the only mili- 
tary enterprise of his reign. His favourite project was a complete 
union of the kingdoms of England and Scotland ; a measure which, 
however beneficial, the mutual prejudices of the two nations were as 



204 MODERN HISTORY. 

yet too violent to bear. As a preparatory step, the episcopal hie- 
rarchy was introduced into Scotland ; but this served only as the 
'incentive of future commotions. James I. died in 1625, in the 59th 
year of his age, and the 22d of his reign over England. 

6. On an impartial estimate of the character of the succeeding 
monarch, Charles I., it may be allowed, that this unfortunate prince 
would have reigned with high popularity, if the nation in his reign 
'nad entertained the same opinions of the regal prerogative, of the 
powers of parliament, and of the liberty of the subject, which had 
prevailed for the two preceding centuries. But it was his lot to 
mount the throne at that critical period when the public opinion had 
undergone an entire revolution on those topics ; and, with many 
excellent endowments both of head and heart, he wanted that po- 
litical prudence which should have taught him to yield to the ne- 
cessity of the times. 

7. Charles was offended with his first parliament, on their refusal 
of adequate supplies for the war in support of his brother-in-law, the 
elector Palatine. Engaged to his allies, the king, dissolving the par- 
liament, issued warrants for borrowing money of the subject. A new 
parliament was found equally uncomplying, and evinced its jealousy 
of the king by the impeachment of his minister, Buckingham. Charles 
avenged the insult by imprisoning two members of the house of com- 
mons. A dissension thus begun was continually aggravated by new 
causes of offence. The levying of money from the subject was en- 
forced by billeting soldiers on those who refused to lend to the crown ; 
and some were even imprisoned on that account. A war was under- 
taken against France, by Buckingham's instigation, a sufficient cause 
of its unpopularity ; and it ended in a fruitless attempt on Rochelle. 
The king again dissolved his parliament, 1,626. 

8. A new parliament exhibited a spirit of determined reformation. 
A Petition of Right was passed by both houses, which declared the 
illegality of raising money without their sanction, or of enforcing 
loans from the subject, annulled all taxes imposed without the consent 
of parliament, and abolished the exercise of the martial law ; and 
Charles was obliged, with much reluctance, to give his assent to 
this great retrenchment of prerogatives, sanctioned by the usage of 
the most popular of his predecessors. 

9. The taxes of tonnage and poundage had usually been contin- 
ued from one reign to another. On this ground the king conceived 
that he was warranted to levy them without a new grant; and a 
member of the house of commons was imprisoned on refusal to pay 
them. This arbitrary measure excited an outrageous ferment in 
that assembly, and the consequence was a new dissolution, of the 
parliament, 1,629. 

10. It was now a measure of necessity to make peace with Francs 
and Spain. The king persevered in levying the tonnage, poundage, 
and ship-money; and high fines were imposed for various offences, 
without trial, by authority of the star-chamber. The legality of 
the tax of ship-money was disputed by John Hampden, who was 
condemned by the court of exchequer, contrary, as was generally 
thought, to justice and the laws of the realm. 

11. Those discontents were increased by religious enthusiasm. 
Charles, by the advice of Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, had relax 
ed the penalties against catholics, and countenanced some innova- 
tions in the ceremonials of church worship, preludes, as they wero 
termed, to the popish idolatries. He had likewise imprudently at- 



MODERN HISTORY. 20b 

tempted to introduce the liturgy ot the church of England among the 
Scots. These measures excited in Scotland very general discontent, 
and produced the most violent commotion. A bond, termed the Na- 
tional Covenant containing an oath of resistance to all religious inno- 
vations, was subscribed in Scotland by all ranks and conditions ; and 
in a general assembly at Glasgow the episcopal hierarchy was sol- 
emnly abolished, 1,638. To maintain this violent procedure the 
Scots reformers took up arms, and, after seizing and fortifying the 
most important places of strength in the kingdom, boldly marched 
into the heart of England. 

12. It was now absolutely necessary to assemble a parliament, and 
the king at length saw that the torrent was irresistible, and resolved, 
though too late, to yield to it. A bill passed for abolishing the ton- 
nage and poundage without consent of parliament, and received the 
royal assent. Monopolies of every kind were abolished. A parlia- 
ment was agreed to be summoned every third year. Unsatisfied 
with these concessions, the commons impeached the earl of Strafford, 
the king's first minister, of high treason, together with Laud, arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, who were charged, as the chief counsellors of 
the crown, with a design of subverting the laws and constitution of 
the realm. The fate of Strafford, whose trial by his peers would 
have terminated in his acquittal, was secured by a bill of attainder, 
to which the king was, with the greatest reluctance, forced to give 
his assent. The commons seized that moment of anguish to ob- 
tain his consent to a decisive measure, a bill which rendered the 
parliament perpetual, by declaring that it should not be dissolved nor 
adjourned except by its own decree, 1,641. Strafford and Laud were 
both beheaded. 

13. This last measure of the commons evinced a determined pur- 
pose to overturn the constitution. Their proceedings hitherto had 
the show of justice, and most of them might be vindicated on the 
principles ot true patriotism. But from this period their conduct 
was treason to their country and its government. The last bill de- 
stroyed the equal balance of the constitution of England, and every 
subsequent measure was a step towards its annihilation. 

14. The Irish catholics took advantage of those disorders, and, 
with the purpose of assuming the entire command of that kingdom, 
and shaking off its dependence on England, attempted, in one day to 
massacre all the protestants in Ireland. To extinguish this horrible 
rebellion Charles consigned to the parliament the charge of the war, 
which they interpreted into a transference to them of the whole mil- 
itary powers of the crown. Under this authority a great force was 
levied, and supplied with arms from the royal magazines. 

1 5. The bishops having complained that their lives were in danger 
from the populace, and having protested against the proceedings of 
the lords in their absence, were impeached of treason by the com 
mons, and committed to the Tower. The patience of Charles was 
exhausted. He caused five of the commons to be impeached, and 
went in person to the house to seize them ; a breach of the privilege 
of parliament, for which he found it necessary to atone by a humili- 
ating message. 

16. A new bill of the commons, naming the commanders of all the 
fortified places, who should be responsible to parliament alone, was 
understood to be a declaration of war. The next step was to assume 
the whole legislative power, by declaring it a breach of privilege to 
dispute the law of the land promulged by the lord3 and commons. 

3 



206 MODERN HISTORY. 

But the lords were merely a name, being entirely under the control 
of the commons. 

17. The sword was now to decide the contest. The royal cause 
was supported by a great proportion of the landed interest, all the 
friends of the established church, and all the catholics in the king- 
dom. On the side of the parliament were the city of London and 
most of the greater towns, with all the dissenters and sectaries. The 
first campaign was favourable to the royalists, who defeated the par- 
liamentary forces at Worcester and Edgehill, but lost the battle of 
Newbury. 

18. The parliament now entered into a strict confederacy with 
the Scots, both in the articles of politics and religion; and the Solemn 
League and Covenant, a new bond more specific in its objects than 
the former, and more treasonable in its purpose, was framed at Edin- 
burgh, for the purification of both churches, the reformation of both 
kingdoms, the maintenance of the privileges of king and parlia- 
ment, and bringing to justice all malignants. In consequence of this 
confederacy, 20,000 Scots, took the field to co-operate with the forces 
of the parliament. 

19. At this time Oliver Cromwell commanded a regiment of 
horse under Fairfax, general of the parliament ; but in reality direct- 
ed all the measures of the army. In Scotland the royal cause was 

fallantly sustained by the marquis of Montrose; but all was lost in 
England by the defeat at Naseby, in 1,645. The troops of the roy- 
alists being entirely dispersed, the king threw himself into the hands 
of the Scots, who basely delivered him up to the commissioners of 
parliament, from whom he was taken by Cromwell's orders, and con- 
ducted to the army, which was now master of the kingdom. Crom 
well entering London assumed an absolute control over the parlia- 
ment, and imprisoned all who disputed his authority. Charles escap- 
ing from his confinement, fled to the isle of Wight ; but was there de- 
tained a prisoner in Carisbrook castle. 

20. The parliament, suffering under this military usurpation, were 
now sincerely desirous of terminating a miserable anarchy by a 
treaty with the king, and, after a long negotiation, all terms were 
finally adjusted. Charles agreed to resign to parliament the military 
power, the disposal of all the offices of state, and the right of creat- 
ing peers without the consent of parliament: he agreed to abolish 
the episcopal hierarchy, and to establish the presbyterian discipline. 
Th.ese concessions the parliament accepted by a majority of suffra 
ges, and declared them to be a sufficient basis for the settlement of 
the kingdom. Cromwell instantly surrounded the house of commons, 
and, excluding all but his own partisans (about sixty in number), a 
second vote was passed, rescinding the former, and declaring it 
treason in a king to levy war against his parliament. A court of 
justice was then appointed to try the king for this act of treason. 
The house of lords, having unanimously rejected this decree, were 
immediately voted, by this junto of independents, to be a useless 
branch of the constitution. 

21. Charles Avas brought to trial, and, refusing to acknowledge the 
authority of his judges, was condemned to suffer death. He was 
beheaded on the 30th of January, 1,649. The arbitrary proceedings 
ot this monarch in the beginning of his reign were certainly suffi- 
cient to justify that resistance on the part of the people which at 
length produced its effect, in confining the regal authority within its 
just bounds, and securing the rational liberties of the subject. But 



MODERN HISTORY. 207 

from the period when this end was attained, resistance ceased to be 
lawful. Its further operations were criminal in the extreme. The 
subsequent usurpations of the commons can no more be justified on 
any constitutional principle, than the murder of the king can be de- 
fended on the score of legality, justice, or humanity. 

SECTION LVII. 
THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. 

1 . The parliament of Scotland had taken no part in these lattei 
scenes, and had formally protested against the trial of the king. On 
his death they proclaimed Charles II. their sovereign, but on the ex- 
press condition of his signing the covenant, and ratifying their con- 
fession of faith. Ireland recognised him without any conditions. 
The heroic marquis of Montrose landed in the north of Scotland with 
a few foreign troops, and attempted to reduce the party of the cove- 
nanters, and to establish the legal authority of the king, independent 
of the servile restrictions with which they had fettered it. Being 
attacked by a much superior force, he was defeated, and betrayed 
into the power of his enemies, who put him to death by the hands 
of the executioner, 1,650 , displaying in the circumstances of his 
punishment all the insolence of cruelty which distinguishes revenge 
in the meanest of souls. Charles retired to Scotland, and was obliged, 
however reluctantly, to acquiesce in all the terms that were imposed 
on him. 

2. Cromwell, with 16,000 men, marched into Scotland against the 
royalist covenanters, whom he defeated in the battle of Dunbar. He 
then followed the royal army, which retreated into England, and 
destroyed it in the decisive battle of Worcester, September 3, 1,651. 
Charles fled in disguise through the western and southern counties, 
till he found an opportunity of escaping to France ; and Cromwell 
returned in triumph to London. 

3. The republican parliament formed and executed great designs. 
A war with Holland was most ably maintained on both sides by three 
great naval commanders, Blake, the British admiral, and Van Tromp 
and de Ruyter, the Dutch admirals ; but the advantage was greatly 
in favour of the English, who took above 1,600 Dutch ships. The 
parliament, elated by these successes, justly conceived that, while 
the nation was thus powerful at sea, the army was an unnecessary bur- 
den, and determined to reduce it. To prevent this measure, Crom- 
well framed a remonstrance of the army, demanding the election of 
a new parliament. This remonstrance being disregarded, he entered 
the house of commons, which he had surrounded with his troops, and 
declaring the parliament dissolved by his authority, forcibly turned 
the members out of doors. The republic of England, which had 
subsisted four years and three months, was thus annihilated in one 
moment, April 20, 1,653. 

4. It was necessary, however, that there should be the appearance 
of a parliament. A few mean persons, of fanatical character, were 
chosen by Cromwell's partisans, from the different counties of Eng- 
land, with five from Scotland, and six from Ireland, to hold their func- 
tion for fifteeen months. This assembly, termed Barebone's par liar 
went, from its leading member, a leather-seller, became the scorn of 
the public, and was dissolved, by its own vote, after five months. 



208 MODERN HISTORY. 

5. The government was now vested in the council of officers, 
who nominated Oliver Cromwell lord protector of the three king- 
doms, invested him with the power of making peace, war, and alli- 
ance, and authorized a standing army of 30,000 men to be kept up 
for the support of government. His administration was despotic, 
vigorous, and spirited. He maintained the honour of the nation in 
the war with the Dutch, compelling them to yield the honour of the 
flag, and to compensate to the India company all its losses. He was 
successful likewise in his negotiations with France and Spain. But 
in his domestic government he was traversed by his parliaments, 
whom it cost him a continual struggle, and even violence, to keep in 
order. One parliament, properly prepared, voted him the regal 
title, which, by the council of his best friends, he was forced, most 
unwillingly, to refuse. In recompense of this self-denial, the parlia 
ment confirmed his title of protector, with a fixed revenue, and de- 
creed his right of appointing a successor. He was king in all but 
the name. 

6. By consent of parliament Cromwell appointed a house of lords; 
but all the ancient peers declined the proffered honour. He was 
forced to choose peers from the commons ; and thus he lost the ma- 
jority in the lower house. His temper soured with disappointment, 
a prey to chagrin, and in continual fear of assassination, he fell at 
length into a mortal disease, and died in the fifty-ninth year of his age. 
September 3, 1,658. 

7. Richard Cromwell, son of Oliver, succeeded to the protectorate 
by his father's appointment. He was a man of weak understanding 
and facile temper, utterly unfit for his hazardous situation, which 
accordingly he maintained only for a few months, resigning his office 
on the 22d of April, 1,659. His brother Henry, viceroy of Ireland, 
immediately followed his example. The family of the Cromwells, 
whicn the talents of one man had elevated above the sovereigns of 
their country, returned to its original obscurity. 

8. The remains of that nominal parliament which had put the king 
to death, termed, in derision, the rump, was now dissolved by the 
council of officers. Of these every aspiring individual had his own 
separate views of ambition. Intrigue, cabal, and anarchy, were univer- 
sal; and the nation, looking forward with horror to a series of calam- 
ities, began earnestly to desire the restitution of its ancient govern- 
ment. George Monk, commander of the army in Scotland, judged 
those symptoms favourable for restoring the exiled monarch to the 
throne of his ancestors. Marching his army into England, he declar- 
ed his resolution to bring about the election of a free parliament, 
which all men knew to be synonymous with the restoration of the 
king. It was of course violently opposed by the republican party, 
who even attempted to excite a new civil war; but they were forced 
at length to acquiesce in the measure. A free parliament was assem- 
bled, and a message was presented from Charles, offering a full in- 
demnity, complete liberty of conscience, and payment of all arrears 
to the army. The message was received with transports of joy, and 
Charles II. was proclaimed king on the 29th day of May, 1,660, 



MODERN HISTORY. 209 

SECTION LVI1I. 
THE REIGNS OF CHARLES II. AND JAMES II. 

1. The nation, without imposing any terms on their new sove- 
reign, trusted implicitly to his good dispositions. Charles was humane 
ana complacent, but indolent, luxurious, and prodigal; and therefore 
was neither able to support the national honour abroad, nor to com- 
mand obedience and respect to his domestic government. The sale 
of Dunkirk was a measure offensive to the pride of the nation. A 
war with Holland, supported at a vast expense, and maintained irc 
many desperate but indecisive engagements, was attended finally 
with no material benefit. By the treaty of Breda, concluded in 1,667, 
New York was secured to the English, the isle of Polerone to the 
Dutch, and Acadia in North America to the French. 

2. The sale of Dunkirk, and the unsuccessful issue of the war? 
attributed to the counsel of the earl of Clarendon, procured the dis- 
grace and banishment of that illustrious man, 1,667. The peace was 
scarcely concluded with Holland, when England joined with her and 
Sweden in a triple alliance, to oppose the progress of the arms of 
Lewis XIV. in the Low Countries; and that object being attained by 
1he treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1,668, the French monarch gained 
the English over to his interest in a new war against the Dutch, 
which brought their republic to the brink of destruction. 

3. The domestic administration of Charles was embroiled from 
various causes, originating in the personal character and dispositions 
of the sovereign. He trusted to profligate and worthless counsellors. 
His arbitrary notions of government, and the partiality which he 
showed to the catholics, gave perpetual alarm and uneasiness to a 
great proportion of his subjects. Complaints resounded from every 
quarter; and the parliament required a test-oath, abjuring popery, 
from all persons in public employment. On refusal to take this oath, 
the king's brother, James duke of York, was deprived of his office 
of high admiral. 

4. Titus Oates, a worthless impostor, pretended to have discov- 
ered a plot of the catholics for assassinating the king, burning Lon- 
don, massacring the protestants, and placing the duke of York on 
the throne. Another villain, named Bedloe, joined his evidence 
to that of Oates ; and on their perjured testimony, afterward fully 
exposed, a few miserable priests suffered death. A new test was 
imposed, which excluded all papists from both houses of parliament. 
The treasurer Danby was impeached for advising the last peace with 
France, though it was proved that he had acted by his sovereign's 
orders ; and a bill passed the house of commons, excluding the duke 
of York from the succession to the crown. A more important bill 
for the general liberty, the act of habeas corpus was the work of the 
same session of parliament. (Sect. LIX., § 14.) 

5. The distinguishing epithets of whig and tory were now first 
known ; the former, the opposers of the crown, against the latter, 
its partisans ; and each party, as in all factions, carried its principles 
to an extreme. The whigs., predominant in the next parliament, 
raged with fury against the catholics, and insisted on the king's assent 
to the bill for the exclusion of his brother. His only expedient was 
to dissolve the parliament, but he found their successors equally vic- 
S? 27 



>. 



210 MODERN HISTORY. 

lent After various fruitless attempts to conciliate their favour to his 
measures, a dissolution of this parliament ensued, the last which 
Charles assembled. 

6. But the great cause of dissatisfaction remained. The duke of 
York was at the bottom of all the measures of government. A con- 
spiracy was formed by Shaftesbury, Russel, Sydney, and the duke of 
Monmouth, natural son of the king, on the pretence of vindicating 
the national liberties. It was discovered by one of the associates, 
and Russel and Sydney suffered capital punishment. The detection 
of this conspiracy strengthened the authority of the sovereign. The 
duke of York, was restored to his office of high admiral, and tacitly 
acknowledged as the successor to the crown. Charles II. died on 
the 6th of February, 1,685, in the 55th year of his age, and the 25th 
of his reign. 

7. The duke of York succeeded to the throne by the title ot 
James II. His reign was short and inglorious. He was the instru 
ment of his own misfortunes, and ran headlong to destruction. The 
catholics at this time were not the hundredth par*t of the nation, 
yet James was weak enough to make the desperate attempt of sub 
stituting the popish faith in room of the protestant. Discarding the 
nobility from his councils, he was directed solely by Romish priests. 
In the very outset of his reign he expressed his contempt of the au- 
thority of parliament, and a firm purpose to exercise an unlimited 
despotism. 

8. The duke of Monmouth, having excited a new rebellion, was 
defeated, made prisoner, and beheaded ; and the most inhuman 
rigour was exercised in the punishment of all his partisans. The 
parliament was in general submissive to the king's will, which for a 
while met with no opposition nor control. A declaration was pub- 
lished, establishing full liberty of conscience in matters of religion ; 
and several bishops, who refused to publish it in their diocesses, 
were committed to prison. A catholic president was appointed to 
one of the colleges at Oxford. An ambassador was sent to the pope, 
and a papal nuncio received in London. The catholics openly boast- 
ed that theirs would soon be the religion of the state. 

6. James had three children ; Mary, the wife of the stadtholder 
William prince of Orange ; Anne, married to prince George of Den- 
mark ; and James, an infant. The stadtholder had considered his 
right to the crown of England as certain before the birth of this 
infant, and, after that event, projected still to gain it by arms or in- 
trigue ; the infatuation of the king and the general discontent of the 
people giving him the most flattering invitation. James was inform- 
ed of those views of his son-in-law, but would give them no credit, 
till actually apprized of his landing with an army, November 15th 
1,688. 

10. The principal nobility and officers immediately joined the 
standard of the prince of Orange; and James was at once abandoned 
by his people, ministers, favourites, and his own children. Leaving 
London in disguise, he was discovered and brought back by the pop- 
ulace , but the prince of Orange wisely favoured his escape, and he 
found means a few days after, to convey himself to France. 

11. The throne being declared vacant, it was proposed in a con- 
vention-parliament, that the crown should be settled on the princess 
Mary and her issue, her husband governing as regent, whom failing, 
on the princess Anne. The stadtholder declining the office of regent, 
it was finally resolved to confer the crown on the prince and prin- 



MODERN HISTORY. 211 

cess of Orange, the former to have the sole administration of the 
government. 

1 2. To this settlement was added a declaration fixing the rights of 
the subject and the royal prerogative. Of this the most important 
articles are the following. The king cannot suspend the laws, nor 
their execution ; he cannot levy money without consent of parlia- 
ment; the subjects have right to petition the crown; a standing 
army cannot be kept up in time of peace but by consent of parlia- 
ment ; elections and parliamentary debate must be free, and parlia- 
ments must be frequently assembled, &c. Such was the final settle- 
ment of the British government at the great era of the revolution. 
At this period, when the constitution became fixed and determined, 
we finish the sketch of the history of our own country. 



SECTION LIX. 

ON THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 

1 . The rudiments of the constitution of England may be traced aa 
far back as the Norman conquest. William distributed a great pro- 
portion of the lands among his Norman followers, subjecting these, 
as well as the Anglo-Saxons who retained their property to the feu- 
dal tenures, and thus extinguishing at once the ancient liberties of the 
people. England was divided into 60,215 military fiefs, all held 
of the crown, under the obligation of the vassal's taking arms for 
his sovereign whenever required. In the continental kingdoms of 
Europe, as in France, the feudal system arose by slow degrees, nor 
was there of consequence the same union of the fabric as in 
England. The feudal lords were independent of one another, ever 
at variance from their mutual pretensions, and often owning but a 
very slender allegiance to the crown. Their vassals suffered from 
oppression, and often struggled for their freedom ; but those efforts 
being partial produced no consequence favourable to the liberty of 
the nation. In England all were oppressed by the enormous weight 
of the crown ; it was a common grievance, and produced at times a 
violent effort for the general liberties of the people. 

2. The forest-laws imposed by the conqueror (Sect. XV., § 2, 11.) 
were a grievance felt by the whole nation, as rendering every man's 
property precarious, and subject to the arbitrary encroachments of 
the crown. It was no wonder that the barons and their vassals should 
cordially unite to rid themselves of so intolerable a hardship. Henry 
I. found it necessary to conciliate his subjects, by mitigating the most 
rigorous of the feudal laws. A greater advance was made under 
Henry II., by the institution of the trial by jury. But John impru- 
dently resisting this natural progress toward a rational freedom, was 
soon compelled into those important concessions, the Charta de Foresta 
and Magna Cliarta. From that time the constitution of England was 
that of a limited monarchy, whatever we may judge of the actual 
government, which was often most arbitrary and despotical. 

3. The next memorable era in the progress of the English consti- 
tution was the reign of that weak prince Henry III., when the par- 
liament received a new form, bv the admission of the representatives 
of the people, the deputies of the counties and boroughs. (Sect. 
XXII., § 2.) His successor Edward I. acknowledged their authority 
in obtaining all his subsidies, and ratified a new law which declared, 



212 MODERN HISTORY. 

thai no tax should be levied without the consent of lords and com- 
mons. Tne Magna Charta was confirmed no less than eleven times 
in the course of this reign. 

4. Thus the constitution continued advancing till its progress was 
suspended by the civil wars of York and Lancaster. The rights of 
both prince and people seemed then to be entirely forgotten; and 
the race of Tudor found no resistance from parliament to their vigor- 
ous and despotic sway. The talents of Elizabeth, and the high 
character which her government sustained with foreign powers, ex- 
tinguished all domestic disquiets, while the predominant feeling was 
the maintenance of the power and dignity of the crown. 

5. But under the succeeding prince, when his power and dignity 
were abased by his own weakness, the nation began to awake from 
its lethargy ; and that spirit of opposition, which in this reign con- 
fined itselt to complaints, in the next broke forth with alarming vio- 
lence. Charles I., endowed with superior energy of character, acted, 
as he conceived, on a principle of duty, whicli obliged him to main- 
tain the prerogative of his predecessors, and to transmit it unimpaired 
to his posterity ; but he was imprudent in exerting with rigour an 
authority which he wanted ultimate resources to support. He was 
compelled to sign the Petition of Rights, a grant more favourable to 
liberty than Magna Cliarta. The true patriots were satisfied with 
this concession, which conferred the most ample constitutional free- 
dom. But the popular leaders made patriotism the cloak of insatia- 
ble ambition; and advanced in their demands with every new com- 
pliance. The last appeal was made to the sword, and the contest 
ended in the destruction of the constitution. 

6. The despotism which succeeded, and the fluctuation of power 
from the long parliament to the protector, and finally to the leaders 
of a standing army, afforded demonstrative evidence how vain was 
the project of a republic, under which the demagogues had masked 
their designs. Weary of anarchy, the nation returned with high 
satisfaction to its former constitution, a limited monarchy. 

7. New encroachments under Charles II. produced new limita- 
tions ; and the act of Habeas Corpus gave the utmost possible security 
to personal liberty. The violent and frantic invasion of the consti- 
tution by James II., banished himself and his posterity from the 
throne, and produced a new and solemn contract between the king 
and the people. Regarding, therefore, the revolution as the final 
settlement of the English constitution, we shall endeavour briefly to 
delineate the chief features of that great political structure. 

8. The constitution of Great Britain may be viewed under two 
distinct heads, the legislative power, and the executive power ; the 
last comprehending the prerogative of the crown. 

The power of legislation belongs to parliament, whose constituent 
parts are, the king, lords, and commons. The house of lords con- 
sists of the temporal peers of England, and of the spiritual, or the 
two archbishops and twenty-four bishops. To these, since the 
unions with Scotland and Ireland, are added sixteen delegates from 
the peerage of the former kingdom, and thirty-two from the latter. 
The house of commons consists of the deputies or representatives 
of the counties and principal towns and boroughs of England, and 
the two universities, amounting in all to 513 members; to whom, 
since the unions, are added 45 from Scotland and 100 from Ireland. 
These deputies are chosen by the freeholders who possess a prop- 
erty yielding a certain yearly rent. The chancellor generally pre- 



MODERN HISTORY. 211 

sides in the house of lords ; the speaker is president in the house o! 
commons. 

9. The king is the most essential component part of parliament, 
because he alone has the power to convoke, prorogue, and dissolve 
it. He has likewise a negative on all its acts, which are invalid 
without his approbation ; and each house has a negative on the de- 
crees of the other. It is likewise competent to the king to propose 
any measure to be laid before the parliament. 

10. All questions regarding public affairs and national measures 
may originate in either house of parliament, except grants of money, 
which must always take their rise in the house of commons, and 
cannot be altered, though they may be rejected, by the lords. Any 
matter must be primarily discussed in that house in which it origi- 
nates, and, until it is there decided, cannot be received by the other 
house, unless a conference should be demanded. «. A bill refused by 
either house is utterly void; and a bill passed by both houses is void, 
if refused by the king 

11. The executive power of government is vested in the king. 
(1.) The first branch of his office is the administration of justice. 
The judges of all courts of judicature are the king's substitutes. 
He is the prosecutor of all crimes, and has the power of pardoning 
and suspending the execution of all sentences. (2.) He is the foun- 
tain of all honour, the giver of all titles and dignities, and the dis- 
poser of all the offices of state. (3.) He is the superintendant of 
commerce, and has the power of regulating weights and measures, 
and of coining money. (4.) He is the head of the church, and 
names the archbishops and bishops. (5.) He is commander in 
chief of all the sea and land forces, and can alone equip fleets, levy 
armies, and appoint all their officers. (6.) He has the power of mak- 
ing war, peace, and alliance, and of sending and receiving ambassa- 
dors. (7.) He is above the reach of all courts of justice, and is not 
responsible to any judicature for his conduct in the administration of 
government. 

12. These high powers of the sovereign, which, at first sight, 
would seem to render him an absolute monarch, are thus admirably 
controlled. The king is dependent on parliament for all subsidies, 
without which he can neither maintain his fleets and armies, nor pay 
the salaries of officers. The parliament indeed settles a revenue on 
the king for life, but this is merely sufficient for the maintenance of 
his household, and for supporting a proper dignity of establishment 
As the king's revenue must be renewed by parliament at the begin- 
ning of every reign, it is in their power to withhold it till all abuses 
shall be remedied. At those periods therefore the constitution may 
be brought back to its first principles, and all encroachments . f the 
prerogative may be restrained. 

13. The king can never reign without a parliament. It must by 
law be assembled once in three years, on a notice of forty days 
before its meeting. Though the king is the head of the church, yet 
he cannot alter the established religion, nor frame ecclesiastical 
regulations. These must be made by the assembly of the clergy. The 
king cannot interfere in the ordinary administration of justice, nor 
refuse his consent to the prosecution of crimes. He may pardon 
offences, but cannot exempt the offender from pecuniary compensa- 
tion to trie party injured. He cannot alter the standard of money, 
either in weight or alloy. He cannot raise an army without the con- 
sent of parliament ; and, though a moderate standing force is kept up 



*14 MODERN HISTORY. 

with their consent, yet the funds for its payment require an annual 
renewal by parliament. Though the sovereign is not amenable to 
any judicature, yet his ministers are responsible for all the measures 
of government, and are impeachable by the commons at the bar ol 
the house of lords, for every species of misconduct or misdemeanour. 
The freedom of parliamentary discussion is secured, because no 
member can be questioned for any opinions or words, except in that 
house of parliament in which they were uttered. 

14. The personal security and the rights of the subject are fur- 
ther guarded by these three peculiarities of the British constitution, 
the habeas corpus, trial by juries, and the liberty of the press^ By 
the act of habeas corpus, every prisoner must be brought before a 
judge, the cause of his detainer certified, and the judge is authorized 
and bound to discharge him, if the cause of his imprisonment be in- 
sufficient or illegal." The violation of this statute is punishable by the 
highest penalties. The habeas corpus may be suspended in times of 
danger to the state, as during the existence of a conspiracy or rebel- 
lion. Though this act does not extend to Scotland, yet the subjects ot 
that part of the united kingdoms are equally secured by their own 
laws. (Statute 1,701, c. 6.) 

15. All crimes must be tried by a jury of twelve men in England 
and Ireland, and fifteen in Scotland. The prisoner has a right of 
challenging or objecting to the jurors ; and (except in Scotland), with- 
out showing any cause, he may challenge twenty successively in or- 
dinary cases, and thirty-five in cases of treason. The jury are judges 
both of the law and the fact ; nor has the opinion of the court any 
weight in their decision, but such as they choose to give it. 

16. The liberty o( the press is a guardian of the constitution, be- 
cause it is competent for any individual to convey to the public his 
opinion of the whole conduct of government, and the merits of its con- 
ductors ; to canvass every counsel of state, and to examine every pub- 
lic measure ; thus forcibly restraining all ministers and magistrates 
within the limits of their duty. It is further the guardian ofinjured 
innocence, and the redresser of all wrongs that evade the cognizance 
of law. Yet this most valuable right, if unrestrained, would be the 
source of the greatest mischief. If it were allowable with impunity 
to assail the established government, to convulse society, to dissem- 
inate atheism, to injure the reputation, or to endanger the life and 
property, of individuals, by false accusations, there would be an end 
of all liberty and civil happiness. The liberty of the press consists 
in this, that there is no examination of writings previous to the print- 
ing and publishing of them ; but, after publication, such writings as 
offend in any of the above particulars are punishable by law, on trial 
of the offence by jury. Thus the public is properly constituted the 
judge and censor of all writings addressed to itself. 

17. Such are briefly the outlines of the admirable fabric of the 
British constitution. Esto perpetua ! {may it exist for ever !) 

SECTION LX. 
OF THE PUBLIC REVENUE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 

1. The property belonging to the crown of Great Britain, which 
was anciently very great, and fully adequate to the maintenance of 
government, consisted of domain-lands, the first fruits and tenths of 



MODERN HISTORY. 215 

church-benefices, the rents of vacant bishoprics and abbeys, the prof- 
its of military tenures, fines imposed in courts of justice, forfeitures, 
&c. From alienations made by the sovereigns, and retrenchments of 
their prerogative, the property of the crown is now become so in- 
considerable, that the king may be regarded as entirely dependent 
on the people for the support of his dignity, and the means of carry- 
ing on the business of the state. The public revenue, destined for 
these two purposes, arises now from the subsidies granted by the 
people. The supplies are voted by the commons, and the means 
of furnishing them, by taxes proposed by the chancellor of the 
exchequer, must receive their sanction. 

2. Of these taxes some are annual, as the land tax and malt tax ; 
others are perpetual, as the customs, excise, salt duty, post-office 
duty, stamps, house and window tax, duties on servants, hackney 
coaches, pensions, &c. The customs are a tax paid by the merchant 
on all imported and exported commodities ; the excise is an inland 
imposition, laid sometimes on the consumer, and sometimes on the 
retail seller. 

2. The produce of these taxes is, in the first place, destined to 
the payment of the interest of the national debt, and afterward to 
the ordinary support of government. 

The national debt arose soon after the revolution, when it was 
thought hazardous to impose annual taxes equal to the annual ex- 
pense of government, and more expedient to borrow large sums for 
the immediate service of the state, raising annually no more than 
to pay the interest of that debt. The same system has been since 
persevered in ; so that the national debt, which a century ago was 
16 millons, is now above 300 millions. To pay the interest of this 
enormous sum the produce of the taxes (excepting the malt and 
land tax) are primarily destined ; and as somewhat more is annually 
raised than the interest of the debt and the maintenance of govern- 
ment demand, the surplus constitutes a sinking fund for paying off 
the principal of the debt. 

4. The produce of the taxes, originally separate funds, is now 
thrown into two or three capital funds; one of which is mortgaged 
by parliament for the maintenance of the king's household and the 
civil list, namely, the salaries of officers of state, judges, and ambas- 
sadors, private expenses, pensions, &c. 

5. Notwithstanding the little prospect of an extinction of the 
national debt, government maintains its credit, and will always find 
lenders, because ttie terms granted are beneficial, and the security is 
transferable ; so that a lender can thus always obtain payment of his 
principal sum, and frequently make gain by the transference. The 
value of stock rises and falls from various occasional causes, as na- 
tional prosperity, or the reverse, plenty or scarcity of money, quan- 
tity of public debt. On this variation is founded the practice ol 
stock-jobbing, that is, either buying and selling actual property in the 
public funds, which is a lawful speculation, or gaming and wagering 
on the price of stock, which is an illicit but common practice. The 
practice of stock-jobbing, even by the transference of actual proper- 
ty, and far more by gaming on that which is fictitious, is prejudicial 
to commerce and manufactures, by engrossing a great part of the 
national wealth, repressing industry, encouraging fraud, and often 
tempting to the most treacherous and dangerous devices for raising 
and sinking the funds. 



216 MODERN HISTORY 

SECTION LXL 

HISTORY OF FRANCE UNDER LEWIS XIII. 

1. France, which under Henry IV. had risen from a state of miser- 
able anarchy to high prosperity and splendour, sunk, upon his death, 
into weakness, faction, and disorder. Mary of Medici, regent in the 
minority of her son Lewis XIII., a weak woman, and of restless am- 
bition, disgusted the nobility by her partiality for her Italian courtiers 
Concini, her first minister, created marshal d'Ancre, became so uni 
versally odious, that he was openly murdered in the Louvre, and 
his body torn to pieces. The queen was removed from Paris, and 
kept for two years a prisoner at Blois, till relieved by the duke 
d'Epernon, to serve his own purposes of ambition. The queen's party 
was at war with that of her son, and the whole kingdom in a state of 
anarchy. 

2. The genius of cardinal Richelieu, who was now brought into 
power by Mary of Medici, soon effected a wonderful change. He 
reconciled the mother and her son, soothed the contending factions, 
and, on the king's assuming the government, directed every public 
measure to the complete re-estabiishment of the power and dignity 
of the monarchy. The party of the Calvinists, alienated by perse- 
cution, attempted to throw off their allegiance, and to establish an in- 
dependent state, of which Roche lie was to be the capital. Richelieu 
bargained with the Dutch to furnish a fleet for subduing their prot- 
estant brethren, and the Dutch now fought as keenly for the catho- 
lic religion as they had lately fought for the protestant. The Eng- 
lish sent a fleet to the aid of the people of Rochelle, who for a year 
maintained a most obstinate siege against the French troops, com- 
manded by the cardinal in person. They were at length forced to 
surrender. Rochelle and all the other protestant cities of France 
were stripped of their privileges, and their fortifications were de 
stroyed. Thus Calvinism was for ever crushed in France. 

3. Lewis XIII., though a weak prince, saw his advantage in en- 
tering into all the great designs of his minister. Richelieu infiu 
enced the politics of all Europe ; and the power of Austria was 
attacked in Germany, Flanders, Spain, and Italy. His talents were 
equally displayed in active war, in foreign negotiation, and in his 
domestic arrangements. Yet at this very time a formidable cabal 
was undermining him, Mary of Medici was jealous of the man 
whom she had raised : and the duke of Orleans, the king's brother, 
sought to supplant him in power. Richelieu, with astonishing intre- 
pidity of mind, repressed this conspiracy. Fortified by the king's 
authority he seized the marshal de Marillac, one of his most danger 
ous enemies, at the head of his army ; and tried and put him to 
death by a lawless stretch of power. Orleans, apprehensive of a 
similar fate, fled from the kingdom ; and Mary of Medici, arresto.d 
and removed from court, ended her career of ambition in voluntary 
exile at Brussels. Orleans, supported by the duke de Montmorency 
attempted a rebellion ; but their army was defeated, and Montmo- 
renci executed for treason. The queen had taken part with the 
enemies of the cardinal, who imprisoned her confessor, and seized 
and examined her papers. Anne of Austria was very near sharing 
the fate of Mary of Medici 



MODERN HISTORY. 211 

4. Amidst all this turbulence of foreign war and state cabal, Riche- 
lieu cultivated literature, encouraged the sciences, instituted the 
French academy, and composed pieces for the theatre. The admin 
istration of Richelieu, though turbulent from faction and civil war 
was, on the whole, extremely glorious for France ; and sowed the 
seeds of its splendour in the succeeding reign of Lewis XIV. The 
death of this great minister, in 1,642, was soon after followed by the 
death of his sovereign Lewis XIII., in 1,643. 



SECTION LXI1. 

SPAIN UNDER PHILIP III. AND PHILIP IV. CONSTITUTION OF 
PORTUGAL AND OF SPAIN. 

1. From the death of Philip II. Spain declined in power, and, not- 
withstanding its great sources of wealth, the national finances were 
in the utmost disorder. Philip III. was forced to conclude a peace 
with the Dutch, and to restore to the house of Nassau its confiscated 
estates. With a weak and despicable policy he expelled from his 
kingdom all the Moors, who were the most industrious of its inhabi- 
tants, 1,610. This depopulation, with that already produced by its 
American colonies, rendered Spain a lifeless and enervated mass. 
Philip was entirely under the influence of his minister the duke of 
Lerma. 

2. The national weakness and disorders increased under Philip IV., 
who, equally spiritless as his father, was implicitly ruled by his min- 
ister Olivarez. His reign was a continued series of miscarriages and 
defeats. The Dutch seized Brazil; the French invaded Artois; 
Catalonia revolted to France ; and Portugal shook off its yoke, and 
became an independent kingdom. 

3. No revolution was ever e fleeted with such ease and celerity 
as that of Portugal. The people were disgusted with the rigorous 
and impolitic administration of Olivarez. The duke of Braganza, 
descended from the ancient kings of Portugal, had the command of 
the army. Instigated by the ambition of the duchess, and seeing the 
spirit ol the nation favourable to his views, he caused himself to be 
proclaimed king at Lisbon. The Spanish guards were attacked and 
routed, and the chief partisans of the government put to death by 
the populace. All the principal towns followed the example of the 
capital, and soon after all the foreign settlements. From that era, 
1,640, Portugal became an independent sovereignty, after having 
been sixty years an appanage of the kingdom of Spain. 

4. The government of Portugal approaches to an absolute mon- 
archy. The consent of the states or cortes, consisting of clergy, 
nobility, and commons, was formerly necessary to the imposition of 
taxes, and the settlement of the succession to the crown. But this 
assembly, convoked only by the royal mandate, has for a long time 
ceased to meet. The ordinary business of government is transacted 
by the king and his council of slate, which is appointed by himself. 
The revenue of the crown aris- s from its domains, including the 
family estates of Braganza ; from the duties on exports and imports, 
from the taxes, and from a stated proportion of the gold brought from 
Brazil. The state of the commerce and manufactures of Portugal 
is extremely low. Though the soil and climate are favourable to 
cultivation, yet the agriculture of the kingdom is much neglected. 

T 23 



218 MODERN HISTORY. 

5. The reigns of Philip IIT. and IV. of Spain, though an ora of 
national humiliation, derived some tame from the state of literature. 
Dramatic composition, poetry, romance, and even history, were 
cultivated with great success. But these pursuits are in some sod 
the amusements of indolence, which was the predominant character 
of the people. This character may have arisen from two souices. 
The torrent of wealth poured in from America retarded, in the lower 
classe«, domestic industry and manufactures, while it increased the 
pride of the gentry, and made them disdain all occupation ; and the 
despotism of the government strongly repressed all enterprise and 
activity in the people. 

6. The constitution of Spain, of which the sovereignty was in an- 
cient times elective, is now that of an absolute monarchy. The 
crown is hereditary; though at different times, as in 1,619 and 1,713, 
there has been a new limitation of the succession made by the mon- 
arch. The Cortes, or states of the kingdom, limited in former times 
the power of the sovereign ; but Charles V. annihilated their author- 
ity, by depriving the nobility and clergy of their seat in those as- 
semblies. The remaining members, the deputies of the towns, are 
entirely under the control of the monarch. The king's council, or 
Consejo Real, is the organ of government ; but no department of the 
state has any constitutional power to regulate the will of the prince. 



SECTION LX11I. 

AFFAIRS OF GERMANY FROM THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES 
V. TO THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA. 

1. To preserve the connexion of the affairs oi Germany with 
those of the other kingdoms of Europe, we must return to the period 
of the abdication of Charles V., when the empire was distracted 
by the political factions and quarrels of its independent princes, and 
by the contending sects of the catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists. 
Ferdir-arid vainly attempted to reconcile those factions, and to unite 
the tnree religions. Maximilian II. had still less power to effect this 
object than his predecessor; nor was the state of affairs cSianged 
during the succeeding reigns of Rodolphus II. and Matthias. A civil 
war of thirty years" duration reduced the empire to extremity 
Under Ferdinand II., a zealous catholic, the protestant states of Bo- 
hemia, which had suffered under the government of Matthias, con- 
ferred their crown on the elector Palatine. Ferdinand, in revenge, 
deprived him both of his crown and electorate. 

2. The protestant cause was declining fast in Germany, and every 
thing seemed to indicate success to the schemes of Ferdinand for its 
entire annihilation, when it received new vigour from the interven- 
tion of Gustavus Adolphus king of Sweden. This great prince de- 
feated the imperial generals, and carried the protestant banners trium- 
phantly through Germany. The emperor was completely humbled, 
and the elector Palatine was on the eve of restoration to his domm 
ions, when the heroic Gustavus was slain in the battle of Lutzen, 
1.632. The war was successfully prosecuted by the Swedish gener 
als, while cardinal Richelieu harassed the house of Austria both in 
Germany and Spain. 

3. In the succeeding reign of Ferdinand 111., the protestants of 



MODERN HISTORY. 219 

Germany found the most active support both from the Swedes and 
the French. The emperor was forced to conclude the peace of 
Westphalia in 1,648 ; and these powers dictated the terms. By this 
celebrated treaty all disputes were settled between the contending 
princes of the empire, and also between the contending religions ; 
the Swedes were indemnified for the charges of the war, and ac- 
quired Pomerania, Stettin, Wismar, and other provinces, and their 
sovereign the dignity of prince of the empire ; its chief posses- 
sions were restored to the Palatine family ; the king of France was 
made landgrave of Alsace ; and an equal establishment of the three 
religions was decreed. This salutary peace laid the foundation of 
the future greatness and prosperity of the German empire. 



SECTION LX1V. 
FRANCE UNDER LEWIS XIV. 

1. On the death of Lewis XIII. in 1,6$3, his son Lewis XIV. suc- 
ceeded to the throne in the fifth year of his age. Europe, as we 
have seen, was in a most turbulent state ; and France, under the ad- 
ministration of Richelieu, acted a conspicuous part in exciting those 
general commotions. The queen mother Anne of Austria, appointed 
regent by the states, chose for her minister the cardinal Mazarin, an 
Italian, and from that circumstance odious to the people. The Span- 
iards, taking advantage of the king's minority and the popular dis- 
contents, made an attack on Champagne ; but were defeated in a 
series of engagements by the great Conde. The marshal de Tu- 
renne shared with him the palm of glory. The peace of Westpha- 
lia composed those differences. 

2. At this very time the commotions of the Frondt broke out in 
Paris. The jealousy of Mazarin's power, felt by the nobility, the 
unpopularity of his measures, the disorder of the finances, and the 
oppression of new taxes, inflamed the nation ; and the intrigues of 
the coadjutor, afterwards cardinal de Retz, blew the flame into a 
civil war. The parliament of Paris took part with the rebels, who 
were headed by the prince of Conti, the dukes of Longueville and 
Bouillon, and the chief nobility. The queen and the Royal family 
removed to St. Germain's, and the ministerial party besieged Paris. 
Turenne, who at first supported them, was gained over by the 
rebels. The women, who are always concerned in the disturbances 
of France, acted a conspicuous part in those of the Fronde. A short 
pacification ensued ; but the imprudent violence of Mazarin soon re- 
newed the disorders. At length the parliament of Paris assumed 
the right of banishing this unpopular minister, who retired to the 
imperial dominions; but his influence continued to regulate the 
measures of state. 

3. A change ensued on the king's coming of age, 1,652. De 
Rotz and Orleans, the chief promoters of the rebellion, were ban- 
ished, and Mazarin resumed his station as minister. Conde had 
joined the Spaniards in an attack on the French Netherlands, but 
was overmatched by Turenne, who revenged this insult by the taking 
of Dunkirk and several fortified towns under the Spanish govern- 
ment. By convention with Cromwell, Dunkirk had been ceded to 
(lie English, and afterwards sold to France by Charles II., as has been 
related. 



220 MODERN HISTORY. 

4. The war with Spain ended in 1 ,659, by the peace of the Py 
renees. Many cessions were made on both sides, but France kept 
Roussillon and part of Artois. It was stipulated that Lewis XIV. 
should marry the infanta, daughter of Philip IV., but should renounce 
all right which might thence open to the crown of Spain. 

5. The treaty of the Pyrenees gave peace to the south of Europe. 
The wars in the north between Sweden, Poland, and Denmark, 
which arose after the abdication of Christina of Sweden, were termi- 
nated in the year following by the treaty of Oliva. Christina, a sin 
gular, but not a great woman, held the sceptre of Sweden for twen- 
ty-two years after the death of her father, Gustavus Adolphus. At 
length, tired of the cares of government, and affecting a passion for 
literature and philosophy, she resigned the crown to her cousin, 
Charles X., in 1,654. Soon after this event Casimer king of Poland 
was induced by age and sickness to abdicate the throne, after an hon- 
ourable reign. 

6. Mazarin died in 1,661, and Lewis XIV. entered on a vigorous 
and splendid career. The iinances, w>hich from the time of Henry IV. 
had been in extreme disorder, were admirably regulated by Colbert; 
and the commerce and manufactures of the kingdom, wisely en- 
couraged by government, were soon in the most flourishing situation. 
The canal of Languedoc joined the bay of Biscay and the Med- 
iterranean ; the principal sea-ports were enlarged and fortified ; and 
the internal police of the kingdom was regularly and strictly enforc- 
ed. At the same time the arms of France aided England against the 
Dutch, Germany against the Turks, and Portugal against Spain. 

7. On the death of Philip IV., Lewis, pretending that Spain had 
failed in payment of the dowry of his queen, besieged and took Lisle, 
with several other fortified towns of Flanders ; and in the next cam- 

Eaign made himself master of Franche-Comte. Lewis marched with 
is armies, but the glory of these conquests was owing to Turenne 
and Vauban. The triple alliance formed by England, Holland, and 
Sweden, checked this career, and brought about the treaty of Aix- 
la-ChapeUe, 1,668, by which Lewis, though he retained Flanders, 
restored Franche-Comte, and confirmed the peace of the Pyrenees. 

8. The strength and prosperity of the kingdom continued to 
increase under the able administration of Colbert and Louvois. The 
civil factions of Holland between the stadtholder and the party of 
the De Wits, tempted Lewis to undertake the conquest of that coun 
try. England, Germany, and Sweden, favoured his views. He 
overran the provinces of Utrecht, Overyssel, and Guelderland, and 
advanced almost to the gates of Amsterdam, when the Dutch inun 
dated the country by letting in the sea, and the French were forced 
to retreat. 

9. The confederate powers now became jealous of the ascendan- 
cy of Fiance ; and the prince of Orange had sufficient influence 
with England, and both branches of the house of Austria, to obtain 
their alliance in aid of the republic. The arms of Lewis, however, 
continued to be successful, and the peace concluded at Nimeguen, 
in 1,678, was much to the honour of France. Franche-Comte was 
assured as a part of her dominions, and Spain allowed her right by 
conquest to a great proportion of the Netherlands. 

10. Notwithstanding the peace, Lewis, with the most culpable 
insincerity, seized Strasburg, and secretly assisted the Hungarians 
and Turks in their attack on the imperial dominions. Vienna must 
have fallen into the hands of the Turks, if it had not been seasonably 



MODERN HISTORY. 221 

relieved by the victorious arms of John Sobieski king of Poland, in 

1,683. 

11. One of the weakest and most impolitic measures of Lewis 
XIV 7 ., was the revocation of the edict of Nantes, granted by Henry 
IV. for the toleration of the protestants. While their worship was 
suppressed, their churches demolished, and their ministers banished, 
the protestant laity were forbidden, under the most rigorous penal- 
ties, to quit the kingdom, 1,685. France, however, by this measure, 
lost above 500,000 of her most industrious and useful subjects ; and 
the name of Lewis XIV. was execrated over a great part of Europe. 
Not long after this time a similar excess of intolerant bigotry pre- 
cipitated James II. from the throne of Britain, and forced him to seek 
an asylum from the monarch of France. 

12. William prince of Orange, the inveterate enemy of Lewis, 
brought about the league of Augsburg, 1,686; and the war was 
renewed with France by Germany, Spain, England, and Holland. 
The French arms were still successful. Luxemburg defeated 
William in the battles of Steenkirk and Nerwinden; Noailles was 
victorious in Spain; and an army of 100,000 French ravaged the 
Palatinate, and took many of the most important towns on the Rhine. 
This was the crises of the glory of Lewis, whose fortunes were to 
sustain the most mortifying reverse. 

1 3. Those various and most extensive military enterprises, how 
ever flattering to the pride of the monarch, had been attended with 
enormous expense, and no solid advantage to the nation. The 
finances had fallen into disorder after the death of Colbert, and a 
peace was absolutely necessary. By the treaty of Ryswick, concluded 
in 1 ,697, Lewis restored to Spain all the conquests made in the two 
last wars, several towns to the emperor, the duchy of Lorraine to its 
duke, and acknowledged the right of William to the crown of Eng- 
land. 

14. The succession of the kingdom of Spain, on the expected 
death of Charles II., without issue, was now the object of political 
intrigue. The emperor and the king of France had the only natural 
right of succession ; but William 111., of England, from the dread 
of such an increase of power to either, proposed a treaty of partition 
of the Spanish dominions, at home and abroad, between the elector 
of Bavaria, the dauphin, and the emperor's second son. Charles II. 
chose rather to make his own destination, and appointed by will thai 
the duke of Anjou, second son of the dauphin, should inherit Spain ; 
on whose death without issue, it should devolve on the archduke 
Charles, youngest son of the emperor. 

1 5. On the death of Charles the duke of Anjou succeeded to the 
throne of Spain, in virtue of this settlement. The emperor, the 
king of England, and the Dutch, proposed to separate from his 
crown the Spanish dominions in Italy. In this enterprise prince 
Eugene, son of the count de Soissons, commanded the imperial 
troops, an illustrious renegado from France, of great prowess and 
military skill. 

16. James II. of England died in 1,701 at St. Germain's, and Lewis 
gave mortal offence to the government of that country by acknowl- 
edging the title of his son. On the death of king William in the 
year following war was declared by England, Holland, and the em- 
pire, against I ranee and Spain. Lewis XIV. was now in the decline 
of life. He had lost the ablest of his ministers and his greatest gen- 
erals. The finances of the kingdom were exhausted. The armies 

T2 



222 MODERN HISTORY. 

of his enemies were commanded by Eugene and the duke of Marl 
borough, the ablest generals of the age, and supported by the treas- 
ures of the united powers. Savoy and Portugal joined this formidable 
confederacy, to overwhelm both branches of the house of Bourbon, 
and place the emperor's son on the throne of Spain. 

17. Marlborough took Venlo, Ruremonde, and Liege. Eugene 
and Marlborough defeated Tallard and Marsin, with the elector of 
Bavaria, in the signal battle of Blenheim, 1,704- England and Hol- 
land attacked Spain by sea and land. Catalonia and Valencia were" 
subdued in six weeks. Gibralter was taken by the English, and 
has ever since remained in their possession. In the battle of Kami- 
lies, Marlborough defeated Villeroy,and left 20,000 dead on the field. 
The contest, at first doubtful in Italy-, ended alike disastrously for the 
house of Bourbon. The archduke Charles was in the mean time 
proclaimed king at Madrid ; and Philip V. had serious thoughts of 
abandoning Spain, and establishing his dominion in America. But 
the successes of the duke of Berwick, natural son of James II., recov- 
ered for a while his desponding spirit, and even prompted his grand- 
father Lewis to avenge himself on England, by aiding the bold but 
desperate enterprise of establishing the pretended James on the 
throne of Britain. 

1 8. But France and Spain were daily losing ground. The pope 
had acknowledged the title of the archduke Charles ; the English 
seized the Mediterranean islands ; and Lewis, fallen from all his 
proud pretensions, humbly entreated a peace, which was refused, 
unless on the condition of dethroning his grandson with his own arms. 
He maintained for a while this unequal contest, and was at length 
forced to propose terms equally humiliating ; the cession of all his con 
quests in the Netherlands and on the Rhine ; the acknowledgment of 
the archduke's title to the crown of Spain ; and a promise to give no 
aid to his grandson. But these terms were refused, and the inhuman 
condition still insisted on, that he should assist in dethroning his 
grandson. A last exertion was made in Spain under the duke of 
Vendome, at the head of a prodigious army ; and the victory ob- 
tained by the French at Villa-vitiosa restored Philip V. to the throne 
of Spain. His competitor, the archduke, soon after became em- 
peror, on the death of his elder brother. 

19. The intrigues of the cabinet of queen Anne, and the coming 
in of a tory ministry, changed the politics of Europe. It was re- 
solved to make peace with France and Spain, and the treaty was 
concluded at Utrecht in 1,713. It was stipulated that Philip king 
of Spain should renounce all eventual right to the ciown of France, 
and his brother to the crown of Spain. The Dutch obtained an ex- 
tension of frontier, and the emperor a great part of Spanish Flanders. 
The English gained from Spain, Gibraltar and Minorca, and from 
France, Acadia, Newfoundland, and Hudson's Bay, with the demolition 
of the harbor of Dunkirk, in the following year, a peace was con- 
cluded at Rastadt between France and the empire. 

20. The conclusion of this peace after an honourable war, was 
the most memorable event in the reign of queen Anne, if we except 
the union of the two kingdoms of England and Scotland, in 1 ,706, which 
was brought about by the negotiation of commissioners mutually 
chosen, to secure the rights of each kingdom in the best manner for 
their mutual benefit. It was stipulated that both should be represent 
ed by one parliament (Sect. LIX., § 8), that they should have the 
same privileges with respect to commerce, and that each kingdom 



MODERN HISTORY. 223 

should retain its own laws and established religion. The succession 
to the crown was limited to the house of Hanover. Queen Anne 
died on the 30th of July, 1,714. Lewis XIV. died on the 1st of 
September, 1,715, in the 78th year of his age. He was a prince of 
great vigour of mind, of good talents, though unimproved by educa- 
tion, of dignified yet amiable manners. His greatest fault was inor- 
dinate ambition, to which he sacrificed the real interests of his people. 
It was his highest honour, that he discerned and recompensed every 
species of merit. France was in his time equally illustrious by the 
great military talents of her generals, and by the splendour of liter- 
ature and ofthe arts and sciences. 



SECTION LXV. 

OF THE CONSTITUTION OF FRANCE UNDER THE MONAR- 
CHY. 

1. It is necessary for understanding the history of France, that 
we should have some acquaintance with its former monarchical con- 
stitution : we shall therefore briefly trace the progress of the gov- 
ernment under the different races of its sovereigns. The regal pre- 
rogative was extremely limited under the Merovingian princes. 
(Sect. II., III.) The general assembly of the nation had the right of 
electing the sovereign, and the power of legislation. Under the 
Carlovingian race the authority acquired by Pepin and Charlemagne, 
sunk to nothing in the hands of their weak posterity ; and though 
the crown had ceased to be elective, the regal dignity was a mere 
shadow. The power of the state had passed into the hands of a 
turbulent aristocracy, ever at variance among themselves, and uniting 
only to abase the crown and to oppress the people. 

2. Under the third or Capetian race the crown acquired more 
weight, and many of the sovereigns exerted a proper spirit in re- 
straining the power of the nobles, and in punishing their lawless 
outrages. To balance the weight of the aristocracy Philip the fair 
introduced the third estate to the national assemblies, which for 
above four centuries had consisted only of the nobles and clergy. 
The chief power of the state began now to shift to the scale of the 
monarch. The national assembly interfered rather to ratify than to 
decree ; and in the fifteenth century the right of legislation was under- 
stood to reside wholly in the crown. The right of taxation seemed 
to follow of course. The assemblies or states-general were now 
rarely convened, and from the reign of Lewis XIII. were discontinued. 

3. But another power gradually rose in the state, which in some 
measure supplied the function of the assemblies in limiting the royal 
prerogative. The parliaments were originally the chief courts ot 
justice in the territory where they were established. The parlia- 
ment of Paris naturally claimed a higher respect and dignity than 
the parliaments of the provinces ; and, acquiring a right of appeal 
from their decrees, was considered as the paramount jurisdiction, 
and the depository of the laws of the kingdom. The sovereigns of 
France, on first assuming the powers of legislation and taxation, pro- 
duced their edicts to be registered in the court of the parliament of 
Paris, and frequently consulted with its members on momentous 
affairs of state, as in questions of peace, war or alliance. Thus the 



224 MODERN HISTORY. 

nation began to regard the parliament of Paris as a body whicu 
shared the powers of government with the monarch. In the lattei 
reigns the parliament availed itself of that general opinion, and made 
a bold stand in opposing any arbitrary stretches of the king's author 
ity, by refusing to verify and register his edicts. 

4. But as this power of the parliament was in reality a usurpation, 
it was constantly a subject of dispute. The members of this court 
were in no sense the representatives of the people, nor vested with 
any portion of the constitutional authority of the national assemblies. 
They were in the king's nomination, removable by him at pleasure, 
and even subject to entire annihilation as a body at his command. 
Even without so violent a remedy, the sovereign could at any time 
frustrate their opposition to his will, by personally appearing in the 
hall of parliament, and commanding his edict to be registered. 

5. Yet a power thus easily defeasible had its advantages to the 
state, and operated as a considerable restraint on the royal authority. 
Considering itself as the guardian of the public liberty, it remonstrat- 
ed against all arbitrary encroachments of the crown, and by giving 
alarm to the nation, furnished an opposition sufficiently powerful to 
obtain its ends. The provincial parliaments, though they likewise 
registered the royal edicts, never assumed any similar authority. 
They were only the chief courts of civil judicature. 

6. The king of France was therefore to be considered as an ab- 
solute monarch, w r hose authority was in some degree limited by the 
consuetudinary regulations of the state, and could not easily become 
entirely despotic and tyrannical. The crown was hereditary, bu 1- 
could not descend to a female, nor to a natural son. The royal rev 
enue was partly fixed and partly arbitrary. The fixed revenue com- 
prehended the royal domains, the duties on wines and salt, the land 
tax, capitation tax, and gift of the clergy ; the other arose from all 
other taxes which the monarch thought fit to impose, and from the 
sale of offices. Most of these duties were leased out to the farmers- 
general. 

7. The Gallican church, though catholic, and acknowledging 
the spiritual authority of the pope, had greatly abridged his ancient 
prerogatives within the kingdom. The assembly of the church 
declared, in 1,682, that no temporal sovereign could be deposed by 
the pope, nor subjects absolved from their allegiance : it decreed the 
subjection of the pope to the councils of the church, and denied his 
infallibility when in opposition to the canons of those councils. The 
pope had no power to levy money in France without the royal 
license. In short, the ecclesiastical authority was in all repects sub- 
ordinate to the civil. 



SECTION LXV1 

OF PETER THE GREAT, CZAR OF MUSCOVY, AND CHARLES 
XII., KING OF SWEDEN. 

1. Two most illustrious men adorned the north of Europe in the 
latter part of the age of Lewis XIV., Peter the great of Muscovy, 
and Charles XII. of Sweden. 

Russia is said to have received the light of Christianity in the 
tenth century, but its history is utterly unknown till the middle of 



MODERN HISTORY, 225 

the fifteenth. At that period John Basilowitz redeemed the empire 
from its subjection to the Tartars, and extended its limits. His suc- 
cessors maintained a considerable splendour as sovereigns ; but their 
dominions were uncultivated, and their subjects barbarians. Alexis 
Michaelowitz, father of Peter the great, was the first who published 
a code of laws. At the end of the sixteenth century Siberia was 
added to the empire, which till that time had been bounded by the 
limits of Europe. 

2. Peter, the youngest son of the emperor Alexis, became mas 
i.er of the empire in 1,689, by setting aside a weak elder brother, 
and banishing a factious sister who had seized the government. He 
was uneducated, and his youth had been spent in debauchery ; but 
his new situation immediately displayed his talents, and gave birth to 
the wisest plans for the improvement of a barbarous people. The 
army and navy demanded his first attention. He began by breaking 
the turbulent militia of the Strelitzes, and by degrees formed a regu 
lar army of 12,000 men on the strictest model of discipline. He em 
ployed some Dutchmen to build a small fleet, and made the first ex- 
periment of his arms in taking Azof from the Turks in 1,696. 

3. Having gained the little instruction which he possessed from 
foreigners, Peter resolved to travel in search of knowledge. Ap- 
pointing Le Fort, an able Genevese, his ambassador, he travelled 
as a private person in his suite through Germany to Holland, and 
studied the art of ship-buiiding, by working in the docks with his 
own hands. Thence he passed to England, and in a similar manner 
acquired the knowledge of every art fitted for the improvement of 
his kingdom. The relative sciences were cultivated with the same 
ardour and success ; and in sixteen months he returned to Moscow to 
reduce those important acquirements into practice. 

4. Regiments were raised and trained to exercise on the German 
model ; the finances arranged and systematized ; the church re- 
formed by new canons and regulations; the partriarchate abolish- 
ed ; and a much abused civil and criminal jurisdiction taken from 
the clergy. It was necessary to carry this reform even to the abo- 
lition of the national dress, and the suppression of ancient usages 
and habits of life, innovations reluctantly submitted to, but enforced 
by absolute power. 

5. While this great genius was thus employed in new-modelling 
and polishing a barbarous empire, a competitor arose to dispute with 
him the sovereignty of the north, and to divide the admiration of 
Europe. Charles XII. succeeded to the throne of Sweden in 1,695, 
at fifteen years of age ; a prince whose singular heroism of character 
and extraordinary achievements have ranked him with the greatest 
conquerors of antiquity. The situation of his kingdom speedily 
brought his genius into display. Russia, Poland, and Denmark, joined 
in a league to seize and divide his dominions. The attack was 
begun by the Danes on Holstein, while the king of Poland invaded 
Livonia, and the czar, Ingria. Charles immediately landed an army 
on Zealand, at the gates of Copenhagen, and in six weeks forced the 
king to purchase the safety of his capital and kingdom, by laying 
down his arms, and making full indemnity to the duke of Holstein. 
He now hastened into Ingria, and at the battle of Narva defeated 
60,000 of the Russians, and took 30,000 prisoners. Such was the 
first campaign of Charles XII., then a boy of seventeen. 

6. Poland was destined to receive a more humiliating chastise- 
ment. Charles reducedCourland and Lithuania.penetrated into the 

29 



226 MODERN HISTORY. 

heart of the kingdom, and subdued the capitals of Warsaw and Cra- 
cow. He then assembled the states, declared king Augustus de- 
posed, and signified his pleasure that Stanislaus, his own dependant, 
should be elected sovereign of Poland. The factions of the king- 
dom aided this revolution, and the will of Charles was complied 
with. The deposed king retired to his electoral dominions of 
Saxony. 

7. A negotiation begun with the czar was abruptly terminated by 
Charles, who declared that he would negotiate only at Moscow. 
Entering the Russian dominions with 45,000 men, he was in the way 
of executing his threat, when he was induced, by a treacherous 
promise of aid from the Cossacks, to march through the Ukraine in 
the depth of winter. His army was wasted by fatigue and famine, 
when he was encountered by the czar at Pultowa ; and the fate of 
Russia, Sweden, and Poland, hung upon that battle. Charles was 
entirely defeated : 9,000 Swedes tell in the field, and 14,000 were 
taken prisoners, 1,709. Augustus was restored to the throne of 
Poland, and the czar took possession of Finland and Livonia. 

8. With the wreck of his army, reduced to 1,800 men, Charles 
retreated into the Turkish dominions, and formed a camp near Ben- 
der. He endeavoured to prevail upon the grand seignior to arm 
against the czar, and succeeded after a long negotiation. Two hun- 
dred thousand Turks took the field, and the czars army, far inferior 
in number, was surrounded, and, after ineffectual resistance, forced 
to capitulate to the grand vizier. The news of this capitulation de- 
stroyed all the hopes of Charles ; and his subsequent conduct seems 
the result of frenzy. The grand seignior having intimated his de- 
sire that the Swedes should quit his territories, Charles fortified his 
camp, and declared that he would defend it to the last extremity. 
After every means ineffectually tried to make him alter this resolu- 
tion, he was attacked by the Turkish army, and taken fighting sword 
in hand amidst a massacre of his troops. 

9. In the mean time the czar and the king of Denmark were rav 
aging Sweden. Charles returned in disguise with two of his officers, 
to his own dominions, and immediately conceived the design of 
wresting Norway from Denmark. Failing in the outset of this enter- 
prise, he was persuaded by Gortz, his prime minister, to attempt to 
dethrone George II., to seize a part of his continental dominions^and 
to place the pretender James on the throne of England. This 
project was concerted between Gortz and Alberoni, prime minister 
of Philip V. The czar joined in the scheme, and made peace with 
Sweden ; but an unforeseen event broke all their measures. In be- 
sieging the Norwegian fortress of Frederickshall, Charles was killed 
by a canron-ball, on the 11th of December, 1,718. 

10. Sweden gained by the death of Charles a reformation of her 
government, and a salutary limitation of the arbitrary power of the 
sovereign. His sister Ulrica succeeded to the throne, and raised to 
it her husband, Frederick landgrave of Hesse-Cassei. The states 
made peace with all the hostile powers. The czar was now engaged 
in a war with Persia, in the view of obtaining the command and 
commerce oi the Caspian. This object he accomplished, and gained, 
by cession from the sophi, three provinces of the Persian empire. 

Peter the great died January 28, 1,725, and was succeeded by the 
czarina Catherine, formely a Livonian captive, who possessed merit 
equal to her elevated station. His only son, Alexis Petrowitz, had 
been condemned to lose his life for treason, and the mode of his 



MODERN HISTORY. 227 

death, which immediately followed his condemnation, is unkntwn. 
Russia owes to Peter the great all those beneficial improvements 
which have raised her, within the period of a century, from barba- 
rism and obscurity, to the highest rank among the powers of Europe. 



SECTION LXVII. 

A VIEW OF THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE AND LITERATURE 
IN EUROPE, FROM THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH TO THE 
END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

1. We have seen how much literature and the sciences were in- 
debted to the art of printing for their advancement and dissemination 
toward the end of the fifteenth century. (Sect. XXXIV., § 12.) 
From that period classical learning, criticism, poetry, and history, 
made a rapid progress in most of the kingdoms of Europe. Philos- 
ophy did not keep pace with literature. The dogmas of Aristotle 
had kept possession of the schools till the seventeenth century, and 
had engrafted themselves even on the doctrines of theology. It 
required a superior genius to dissipate the mist of error, and to 
break the fetters on all advancement in useful science. Such was 
the great Bacon lord Verulam, the most profound philosopher, and 
perhaps the most universal genius, that any age has produced. We 
find in his works an estimate of the actual attainments in all the 
sciences, a catalogue of the desiderata in each department, and a 
detail of the methods best suited to prosecute improvement and new 
discoveries. In fine, we owe to Bacon the sure method of advanc- 
ing in knowledge by experiment and the observation of nature, 
instead of system and conjecture. 

2. The philosophy of Bacon produced its effect only by slow de- 
grees. Gassendi, though he exposed the doctrines of Aristotle, was 
still a theorist, and attempted to revive the atomic system of Epicu- 
rus. Des Cartes followed in the same track, and reared a whimsical 
theory of the universe, produced, as he supposed, by the fortuitous 
combination of atoms, moving in vortices through the immensity of 
space ; a theory recommended by the ingenuity with which it was 
supported, and its apparently solving many ot the phenomena ol 
nature. A century before Copernicus had published his system ol 
the planets, which, though condemned by the church, was received 
by Des Cartes and the best philosophers. 

3. Galileo, in 1,609, constructed telescopes (Sect. XXXIV., § 5), 
and discovered the satellites of the larger planets, Jupiter and Saturn, 
and their motions, for which he was rewarded by imprisonment, as a 
supporter of the Copemican heresy. Kepler investigated the laws 
which regulated the motions of the planets, and the analogy between 
their distances from the sun and periodical revolutions. The discov- 
eries in astronomy led to improvements in navigation, and a great ad- 
vancement of geometry in all its branches. Napier, in 1,614, abridg- 
ed calculation by the invention of logarithms. The Toricellian ex- 
periments determined the weight of the atmosphere. In 1,616 
Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood. 

4. The Royal Society, which originated from private meetings of 
the English philosophers, was incorporated by Charles II., in 1,662» 
and has greatly contributed to the advancement of the sciences and 



228 MODEHJN HISTORY. 

useful arts. The Royal Academy of Sciences was instituted in 1,666 
by Lewis XIV. Similar institutions were founded in most of the coun- 
tries of Europe ; among which there is a communication of science, 
and a laudable emulation excited by the publication of their transac- 
tions. 

5. In the end of the seventeenth century arose the immortal Newton, 
who, by exhausting the most important discoveries of the laws of na 
ture, has rendered it impossible for posterity to eclipse his fame. He 
had discovered, before the age of twenty-four, the theory of universal 
gravitation, a principle which solves the chief phenomena of nature, 
and connects and regulates the whole machine of the universe. His 
theory of light and colours is the foundation of the whole science of 
optics, and his Principia the basis and elements of all philosophy. 

6. Locke, the contemporary of Newton, successfully applied lord 
Bacon's mode of investigation to the study of the human mind ; and, 
utterly rejecting the systems of the old philosophers, examined the 
soul by attending to its operations. From the simple fact that all 
knowledge is progressive, and that an infant gains its ide«as gradually 
through the medium of its senses, he drew the general conclusion, 
that there are no innate ideas in the mind, but that all are either im- 
mediate perceptions conveyed by the senses, or acts of the mind re- 
flecting on those perceptions ; a conclusion which has been obstinate- 
ly controverted, chiefly by drawing from it false consequences, but 
which has never yet been shaken. 

7. The progress of literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries was equally remarkable with that of science and philoso- 
phy. Trissino was the first of the moderns who composed an epic 
poem in the language of his country, LP Italia liberata da Goii, and 
the first Italian who wrote a regular tragedy, Sophonisba. Of merit 
much superior to the epic poem of Trissino is the Lusiad of the 
Portuguese Camoens, a work abounding with passages of high poetic 
beauty, and displaying a sublime imagination. In the end of the six- 
teenth century Spain produced the Araucana of Ercilla, an epic poem 
of great inequality of merit, but frequently exhibiting novelty oi 
figures and bold conceptions. The subject is a revolt of the Peru- 
vians against the Spaniards. 

8. But the principal epic poems of this age are the Orlando Fw 
rioso of Ariosto, and the Gierusalemme Liberata of Tasso : the former 
a work most irregular in its plan, most unconnected and desultory in 
its conduct most extravagant and absurd in the characters of its per- 
sons, but displaying alternately every excellence of poetry in the 
various departments of the descriptive, comic, satiric, moral, and 
sublime. The Gierusalemme of Tasso, cf a regular plan and perfect 
polish in its structure, has been frequently brought in comparison 
with the equally highly finished poem of the JLneid ; nor does the 
Italian surfer much in the comparison. There is a romantic charm 
both in the incidents and characters of his poem, which must ever ren- 
der it a favourite with all readers of genuine taste. 

9. From the time of Tasso the genius of epic poetry lay dormant 
for a century, till the days of Milton ; for the Fairy Queen of Spenser 
is rather a romantic allegory than an epic poem. The Paradise Lost, 
compared with the great poems of antiquity, is more irregular and 
less perfect as a whole than the Iliad, JLneid, and Odyssey ; but ex- 
hibits, in detached parts, more of the sublime and beautiful than any 
of them. It has been well remarked, that the inequality of this poem 
arises in a great measure from the nature o£ the subject of which 



MODERN HISTORY. 229 

some parts are the most lofty which can enter into the human mind, 
and others could only have been supported h- a laborious elegance 
and polish, which the author's genius could not stoop to bestow. ' 

10. Lyric poetry was cultivated in the sixteenth century, in Italy, 
France, and England, but with no great success. The less poems of 
Ariosto and Tasso have no tincture of the genius displayed in their 
greater works. Chiabrera is perhaps the only lyric poet of this 
period that merits distinction. In France, Ronsard and Bellay imi- 
tated Petrarch with all his false wit, but without his passion. Marot, 
nowever, in the naivete and easy vein of his humour, is justly ac- 
counted the master of La Fontaine. In the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century French versification received a considerable polish 
from the compositions of Racan, and yet more from those oi Mal- 
herbe ; and toward the end of that century lyric poetry was cultivat- 
ed with high success by La Farre, Chapeile, and Bachaumont, Chau- 
lieu and Gresset. 

11. The English lyric poetry of the sixteenth century, of Spenser, 
Surrey, Harrington, Sydney, and even Shakespeare, is harsh and 
unharmonious ; nor is much improvement discernible till the time of 
Cowley and Waller. The merit of Cowley as a lyric poet was too 
highly prized in his own age, and is underrated in ours. With all his 
false wit, pedantry, and obscurity, he is often both sublime and 
pathetic in no moderate degree. The lyric ode in the third book of 
the Davideis has few parallels in the English language. As a prose 
writer, Cowley shines in that age with superior excellence. Waller 
is more polished and harmonious than any of the preceding or con- 
temporary poets, but his wit is quaint, and his elevation too frequent 
ly bombast. 

12. Dry den, in the end of the seventeenth century, carried lyric 
poetry to" perfection. His Ode on St Cecilia's day surpasses all the 
lyric compositions both of ancient and modern times. He shines 
conspicuously as a satirist, possessing the keen and caustic wit, with- 
out the indelicacy, of Juvenal or Horace. His versions from Chau- 
cer and Boccacio are easy and spirited, and display a happy talent 
for poetical narrative. His numerous dramatic pieces, though exhib- 
iting both invention and poetic beauty, are deficient in true passion, 
and in the just delineation of character. 

13. At the end of the sixteenth century the drama in Europe be- 
an to furnish a rational entertainment. At that period, Lope de 
ega and Calderona in Spain, and Shakespeare in England, produced 

those pieces, which, though irregular and stained with blemishes, 
are at this day the admiration of their countrymen. The Spanish 
plays of that age have been a rich mine for succeeding dramatists, 
both among the French, Italians, and English. The merits of Shakes- 
peare are familiar to every person of taste. Ignorant of the rules 
of his art, he is the pure child of nature, und thus exhibits often her 
caprices and absurdities ; but these are redeemed by the most trans- 
cendent beauties. The old English drama is, with all its irregular 
ities, incomparably superior to the modern, both in touching the pas 
sions and in displaying just views of human character. The persons 
are more discriminated by various and appropriate features, and the 
nicer shades of nearly resembling characters are thus more distinctly 
marked. The mixture of the comic and tragic in the same plot, 
though condemned by modern practice, is a great source of pleasure 
in the pieces of Shakespeare and his contemporaries ; nor is there any 
tiling in such a mixture but what is consonant to nature. To a per- 



v 



230 MDBKllN HISTORY* 

son of true taste it will be found often to heighten, by contrast, the 
capital emotion to be excited. 

14. The compositions for the French stage, in the end of th» 
seventeenth century, are strictly conformable to dramatic rules; 
and many of those pieces are models of a correct and polished taste. 
The morality of the French drama of that age and the next is in gen- 
eral purer than ours ; but their pieces are deficient in the nice delin- 
eation of character, and in the power of exciting the passions. 
Corneille and Racine brought the French tragedy to its highest ele- 
vation ; as Moliere the comedy. Corneille has more grandeur and 
sublimity than his rival, who excels him in the tender and pathetic. 
The comedies of Moliere, highly amusing in the present time, were 
more particularly valuable in the age when they were written, and 
had a sensible effect in correcting its prevailing follies ; the pedantry 
of the ladies, the ignorance and quackery of the physicians, and the 
pride and arrogance of the French noblesse. The last of the emi- 
nent dramatists who adorned France in the seventeenth century was 
the elder Crebillon, who drew many sublime and impassioned scenes 
from the source of terror ; and who, in all his works, was as emi- 
nently the friend of virtue as his worthless son has been the pander 
of vice. 

15. The most eminent historians of the sixteenth century are, 
De Thou, Davila, and Machiavel. De Thou has written the annals 
of his own time, from 1,545 to 1,607, with great judgment, and in 
most elegant Latin composition. The history of Davila, the annals 
of the civil wars of France in the time of the league, though the 
work of a partisan, is composed with no common degree of candour 
and impartiality. In .he beginning of the sixteenth century Machia- 
vel wrote his History of Florence, of which the style is classical and 
the matter well arranged, but too much interrupted by reflections and 
political discussions. In the seventeenth century Bentivoglio com- 
posed his History of the Civil Wars of Flanders, with the most ac- 
curate knowledge of his subject, persi icuity of narrative, and ele- 
gance of style. Among the English historians in the beginning of 
that period Raleigh is the most distinguished ; though his History of 
the World is, in point of style, inferior to the judgment shown in the 
arrangement of the matter. In the latter part of the seventeenth 
century, Clarendon's History of the Rebellion is a work of the high- 
est merit, whether we consider the authenticity of the facts, the deep 
knowledge of human nature displayed in the delineation of the 
characters, or the grave and manly eloquence of the style. If, in 
the opposition of political opinions, he has been deemed too partial 
in defence of his sovereign, even his adversaries have admitted his 
perfect integrity, and entire conviction of the rectitude of the cause 
which he supports. 



HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 



SECTION I. 



A GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF MANKIND IN THE 
PRIMEVAL AGES. 

1. In contemplating those great outlines of history, the memorable 
and important events which have determined the condition of man- 
kind, and rendered the aspect of the moral and intellectual world 
such as we now view it, we shall find abundant subjects for observa- 
tion and reflection. In many cases we shall be obliged to have re- 
course to conjecture, founded on different degrees of probability ; 
and some of those probabilities may be so corroborated by general 
existing circumstances as to amount almost to certainty. 

2. Of the primeval state of mankind we know little "from historical 
information, and can form an opinion of it only from conjecture 
founded on the nature of things. From the extremely slow progress of 
civilization it is reasonable to suppose that men must have existed a 
long time before they began to write the history of such transactions 
and events as they deemed most important. All their care and atten- 
tion would at first be employed in providing the means of supplying 
their physical wants, and of rendering their existence tolerable. In 
that state of simple nature they would not think of transmitting an ac- 
count of their actions to posterity, and could hardly have any oc- 
currences worth recording. Here our knowledge of human nature 
and of human wants will supply the deficiency of history. From 
the experience of our own wants, and of the means of supplying them, 
we may infer almost with certainty, that habitations would be built as 
a shelter from the inclemency of the weather: and in fact we find 
this to be the case in all those countries which are at present occupied 
by savages. In process of time some attention would be given to 
the cultivation of the soil, to make the earth produce such vegetables 
as were fit for the food of man. The arts most essential to the com- 
fortable existence of the human species would be invented before 
the use of letters. 

3. From all these circumstances we may reasonably suppose that 
the first rude sketch of history would be the traditionary tales de- 
livered from father to son through successive generations ; and these 
in reality constitute the basis of the first historical records. Such are 
the fabulous relations of the first historians among the Greeks, It 
appears that the Greeks had adopted the historical legends of the 
Egyptian priests, who were accustomed to cover their religion and 
learning with the mystical veil of allegory ; and that in many cases 
they mistook the Egyptian mode of allegorizing the early periods of 
history, and have presented to posterity an absurd and monstrous 
tissue of fabulous narrative of kings who never reigned, and of heroes 

f celestial descent 



232 MODERN HISTORY. 

4. Superstition being natural to man before the mind is enlightened 
by philosophy, it is no wonder that the writings of the first historians 
contain many relations of the communication of gods and demi-gods 
with mankind, and of the frequent interference of supernatural 
agents in human affairs. The vivid imaginations of the early Greek 
authors, heated with superstition, and unrestrained by philosophy, 
expanded into wild exuberance, and fabricated the most absurd and 
ridiculous tales. Hence the period of time which elapsed between 
the establishment of political and civil society in Greece, and the 
Trojan war may be justly denominated the fabulous age ; and indeed 
most part of what is related concerning that war, has evident marks 
of fiction stamped upon it ; for all the historical accounts of it are 
originally founded on the poems of Homer. No writings can claim 
the title of an authentic history of Grecian affairs before the Per- 
sian wars. The histories of all other heathen nations were not less 
fabulous and absurd thar. those of the Greeks ; and indeed all that 
we know concerning them has been transmitted to us through the 
medium of Greek writers. 

5. When we consider the general state of the world in the early 
ages, with respect to political, commercial, and literary communica- 
tion, however we may amuse ourselves with perusing the accounts 
transmitted to us of the transactions of remote antiquity, reason tells 
us that they are nothing but fiction or historical romance. Until 
the Greeks (who were the inventors, or at least the improvers of 
arts and sciences) had attained a considerable degree of civilization 
and opulence, and had begun to cultivate the arts of conveniency, 
luxury, and elegance, little credit is due to profane history. This 
period cannot be fixed long before the first Persian war, which hap- 
pened about 503 years before the birth of Christ. For inibrmation 
relative to the state of mankind, and the events which occurred 
before that period, we must have recourse to the writings of the 
Jews. 

6. This consideration naturally leads us to turn our attention to 
those ancient records of the Jews, which have always been deemed 
sacred by them, and of which the authenticity has been acknowl- 
edged by the generality of mankind, who have perused them with 
due attention. The Jewish annals are the most ancient of all that 
have been transmitted to us, and the most intrinsically rational and 
probable. They likewise contain a series of transactions and events 
equally curious and interesting. In them we find the only rational 
account of the creation of the world, and the beginning of things; 
of the dispersion of mankind, and the origin of ancient nations. 



SECTION II. 

SUMMARY VIEW OF JEWISH HISTORY. 

1. The Israelites, or ancient Jews, were those distinguished peo- 
ple, who were favoured by the immediate care of the Almignty, 
and conducted by his especial guidance to Judea, a place of resi- 
dence promised to their remote ancestors. In consequence of their 
obstinacy, idolatry, and wickedness, and more particularly for the 
rejection of their Messiah, they were subdued by the Romans, after 
sustaining a siege ir their metropolis, Jerusalem, unparalleled in the 



MODERN HISTORY. 233 

annals of history for its distresses, calamities, and slaughter. Jerusa- 
lem was reduced to ruins, the Jewish government was totally sub- 
verted, and the surviving people were dispersed over most parts ot 
the world. Their descendants still remain unmixed with the rest 
of mankind, and are marked by their original features of national 
peculiarity : they adhere with the most zealous attachment to the 
religion of their forefathers, and cherish the hoj>es of restoration to 
their former prosperity and country by means of a glorious and tri- 
umphant Deliverer. 

2. They preserve, with the most watchful care, the sacred books 
of their ancient writers. And astonishing, very astonishing it is to 
observe, that in the prophetical parts of these sacred books are contained 
all the events before mentioned of their extraordinary history. Their 
particular conduct, and the vicissitudes of their national affairs, were 
predicted by their prophets, and more, especially by Moses, their 
great law-giver, in the infancy of the world, at the vast distance of 
thirty-three centuries from the present times. The accomplishment 
of these predictions bears the fullest and most striking evidence to 
the truth and inspiration of their prophets, and illustrates the dis- 
pensations of Providence to his chosen people. 

3. These sacred books contain likewise predictions the most exact 
of the character, office, and actions of the Messiah of the Jews, the 
great Law-giver of the christians, the appointed Saviour of the world. 

4. Such interesting circumstances as these, in addition to the pe- 
culiar nature of the Jewish polity, considered as a divine institution, 
the curious manners and customs, and the memorable actions of the 
descendants of Abraham, the most ancient people of whom we h?ve 
any authentic accounts, combine to place these books first in order 
of importance, as in order of time. If we consider the great antiqui- 
ty, the subjects, and the characters of the writers, of these books, and the 
place which they occupy in the order of general history, particular- 
ly as they stand connected with the christian revelation, they will be 
found to deserve our very earnest attention. 



SECTION III. 
THE ANTIQUITY OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

1. No writings of any other nation can be brought into competi- 
tion, in respect of antiquity, with those of the Jews. In proof of 
this assertion it may be remarked, that Moses lived more than a 
thousand years before the age of Herodotus, who is reputed the 
father of Grecian history. As another proof of the priority of the 
Jews to the Greeks, it appears by the confession of the Greek wri- 
ters, that they received the letters of their alphabet from the Phoe- 
nicians ; and there are very suflicient grounds for believing that the 
Phoenicians derived the art of writing from the Jews. The learned 
and acute Porphyry, who was an equal enemy both to Jews and 
christians, and much attached to the learning of Greece, candidly 
acknowledged that Moses, and the prophets who immediately suc- 
ceeded him, flourished nearly a thousand years before any of the 
Greek philosophers. 

2. The books which compose the canon of the Jewish scriptures 
have the concurrence of all antiquity in favour of their originality. 
They were delivered to the Hebrews in their own language, with 

U2 30 



234 MODERN HISTORY. 

every mark of genuineness, by the persons whose names fhey bear 
and those persons, by recording contemporary events, constantly 
appealed to well known proofs of their regard to truth. The pro- 
phetical books in particular contain the evidences of their inspira- 
tion, as well as of the integrity and piety of their authors. The ex- 
ternal proofs are clear and strong, as well as the internal ; in conse- 
quence of which all these books have always been preserved with 
ine greatest care, and have been held in the highest veneration. 

3. It is no less curious than important to remark the traditions 
preserved in the pagan world, which confirm the truth of the Pen- 
tateuch, or the five books written by Moses. The Chaldeans pre- 
served the history of their Xisurus, who was the Noah of Moses. 
The Egyptians asserted that Mercury had engraved his doctrine 
upon columns, which had resisted the violence of a deluge. The 
Chinese historians record that Peyrun, a mortal beloved and protect- 
ed by the gods, saved himself in a vessel from the general inundation 
The Hindoos say that the waters of the ocean spread over the surface 
of the earth, except one mountain to the north ; that one woman 
and seven men saved themselves on this mountain, with certain 
plants anl animals. They add, in speaking of their god Vishnou, that 
at the deluge he transformed himself into a fish, and conducted the 
vessel which preserved the relics of the human race. This vessel 
is likewise a subject of tradition in the northern parts of the world. 
Sulivan's View of Nature, Letter 67. 

4. That the sacrifice of animals was necessary to appease the 
offended gods, was a religious tenet very general and veiy ancient. 
The account of the long lives of the patriarchs is confirmed by wri 
ters of various countries. Their primitive manners, and their 
mode of performing sacrifices, and offering prayers to the great Au 
thor of nature on the summits of mountains, and in the retirements 
of groves, agree with the descriptions of Homer, and many other 
early writers. Zoroaster, the great teacher of the ancient Persians, 
derived from the books of Moses the first principles of his religion, 
his ceremonial laws, his account of the creation, of the first parents 
of mankind, of the patriarchs, and particularly of Abraham, whose 
pure religion he professed to restore. 

5. In the attributes and characters of the heathen gods may be 
found allusions to the ancient expressions of the Hebrew scriptures. 
In the customs, laws, and ceremonies of many other nations may be 
traced a resemblance to the Mosaical institutions. In the accounts 
of the deities of the Pagans, and the early heroes and benefactors of 
mankind, particularly in those which adorn the pages of Grecian 
history, are represented many of the patriarchs and illustrious per- 
sons of scripture. Many principles of the most eminent philoso- 
phers, many fictions of the most celebrated poets, both of Greece 
and Rome, and many institutions of the most renowned heathen law- 
givers, cannot fail, by their circumstances of resemblance, to direct 
our attention to the great legislator of the Jews. The most venera- 
ble and ancient traditions of the world seem to contain the parts of 
one original and uniform system, which was broken by the disper- 
sion of the primeval families after the deluge, and corrupted by the 
revolution of ages. They were the streams which tlowed through 
the various countries of the earth, from the great source of Mosa- 
ical history.* 

* See Stillingfteet, b. iii, c. 5 ; Bryant's Mythology ; Maurice's Indian 
Antiquities •, Raleigh's History of the World, p. 71. 



MODERN HISTORY. 235 

6. Josephus, the Jewish historian, flourished in the reign of the 
emperor Vespasian. He was a person of great learning and emi- 
nence, and conducted his inquiries with singular diligence, industry, 
and care. He corroborates the testimony of the sacred writers, and 
illustrates their truth ; as he not only gives a regular detail of the most 
remarkable transactions of the Jews, but introduces considerable 
notices of all those people, with whom they formed alliances, or car- 
ried on wars. In his treatise against Apion he exposes the contra- 
dictions which occurred in the Egyptian, Chaldean, and Phoenician 
records ; vindicates the authority of the Jewish scriptures ; describes 
the care which was taken in their preservation ; and states their 
superior pretensions, more particularly in point of antiquity, to the 
respect and reverence of mankind.* 



SECTION IV. 

THE SUBJECTS OF THE BOOKS, AND CHARACTERS OF THE 
WRITERS. 

1. The subjects of the books of the Old Testament are truly 
wonderful and striking, and of such a nature as to surpass all monu- 
ments of profane learning, equally in importance as in antiquity 
Of all parts which compose the sacred canon, none are more curious 
than Genesis, the first book written by Moses ; because it contains a 
sketch of the earliest history of mankind. There stand recorded 
the creation of the world and its inhabitants, the fall of our first pa- 
rents from their state of innocence and happiness, and their banish- 
ment from the garden of Eden ; the repeated and signal promises of 
a future restorer of the lost blessings of mankind ; the history of the 
patriarchs, honoured by the revelations of Jehovah ; the description 
of the general deluge ; the dispersion of the progenitors of the hu- 
man race over all the earth ; the adoption of a particular family to 
perpetuate the remembrance, and establish the worship of the true 
God, and their prosperous settlement in Egypt. Instances indeed are 
mentioned of early depravity, and of the violence of the passions, 
attended with suitable punishments ; yet society appears under its 
simplest form in point of manners, and we discern no traces of the 
luxury and false refinement of subsequent times. 

2. In the books of the Jews is recorded an account of the descen- 
dants of Israel ; a race of men selected from all others, and favoured 
with successive revelations of the divine will. Here are shown the 
instances of their fidelity, perverseness, and disobedience; their 
glory and triumphs ; their disgraces, and their subjection to foreign 
powers. Here is seen the superintendance of a divine and especial 
Providence watching over innocence, suspending wrath, and taking 
the most signal vengeance upon unrepented offences. Here are 
developed the failings of the most virtuous persons, and the obdurate 
wickedness of confirmed sinners. Here are displayed the mixed 
characters even of the most excellent men, the eminent examples ol 
faith and piety, of courage and patience, in the conduct of Abraham, 
Lot, Job, Joseph, Moses, David, Hezekiah, Josiah, and Daniel 

* Rett's Interpreter of Prophecy, vol. i, p. 200. Lardner, vol. vii, p. 
30, 259, &c. 



236 MODKRN HISTORY. 

And most interesting is it to observe, that the knowledge of the 
one true God was communicated to this people, and preserved by 
them alone ; that they had the most sublime ideas of his nature 
and attributes; that a magnificent temple was erected to his honour; 
a regular service was instituted ; holy ceremonies were performed; 
an order of priests of one particular family was consecrated ; a pure 
worship was established by his express command, and regulated by 
his particular laws. Thus were the Jews enlightened by a knowl- 
edge of the true object of divine worship ; and thus were the purity 
and holiness of their religious ordinances conducted, at a time when 
all other nations presented a wide scene of gross superstition and 
mental darkness ; when the rest of the human race, and even the 
most intelligent and polished nations of Egypt and Greece, showed 
the most abject degradation of their nature, by prostrating them- 
selves before idols of their own workmanship ; and abused the evi- 
dence of sense, and the faculty of reason, by imputing to wood and 
stone the attributes of divine power. 

3. We see likewise a succession of prophets raised up among the 
Jews, to communicate the divine will, to warn them of evils, and to 
announce to them blessings to come. These holy men, ever obedi- 
ent to the call of Heaven, rose superior to all worldly considerations ; 
and with a spirit of intrepidity and independence, which clearly 
showed that Heaven was the source of their reliance, they executed 
their sacred commissions, unawed by the threats of kings, or the 
resentment of the people. They foretold remote events in times 
when they appeared most improbable ever to take place, and when 
no human foresight, and no calculation of chances, could guide them 
to the discovery of the particular affairs, which fulfilled their pre- 
dictions. Moses, in a long and most interesting detail of threats and 
promises, foretold the exact manner in which his people were ordain- 
ed to be happy or miserable, according as they followed or disobeyed 
the divine laws. At a subsequent period, when Jerusalem was laid 
in ruins, and the Jews were groaning under the sorrows of the Baby- 
lonish captivity, Isaiah solemnly addressed Cyrus by his name, more 
than a hundred years before his birth, as the deliverer of Israel, and 
the new founder of the Holy City* When Babylon was shining in 
the meridian of its glory, and its monarchs ruled over all the nations 
of the east with the most despotic sway, the same prophet predicted 
the total subversion of their empiie, and the complete desolation of 
their vast metropolis. That all these and numerous other predictions 
were exactly verified by the events, are truths confirmed by the evi- 
dence of profane as well as sacred history. 

4. The same inspired prophets had a much more grand and im- 
portant object in view, than to declare the future dispensations of 
Providence to one nation in particular; for they announced, in terms 
at first dark and mysterious, but progressively more clear and cir 
cumstantial, the future birth of a Messiah, a glorious king, a divine 
legislator, who was to abolish the sacrifices and religious institutions 
of the Jews, and to proclaim and establish a general law for the 
observance and happiness of all mankind. Here the evangelists ccn* 
tribute their aid to illustrate the declarations of the prophets, and 
unite the history of the Old with that of the New Testament, in 
the most close and indissoluble bonds of union. 

* Isaiah, B. C. 757. Cyrus, B. C. 589. Rett's Interpreter of Prophecy, 
vol. i. p. 130 



MODERN HISTORY. 237 

5. The historical books of scripture, considered from the time of 
the giving of the law to Moses to the reformation in the worship and 
government by Nehemiah, after the Babylonish captivity, contain a 
summary account of the Jewish affairs for a period of eleven centu- 
ries.* They were evidently not intended to give a complete detail 
of national transactions, as their writers had a more sublime and im- 
portant end in view. To illustrate the prophecies, by relating cir- 
cumstances whicli existed at the time when they were uttered, and 
to show their accomplishment ; to record various revelations of the 
divine will, and to describe the state of religion among the Hebrews, 
and the various dispensations of Providence, in public as well as in 
private occurrences, seem to have been their chief objects. Hence 
it is that the chain of history is sometimes broken into detached parts, 
and its detail is interrupted by a recital of private transactions. The 
books of scripture occasionally assume the form, and comprise the 
beauties of a very interesting kind of biography. Of this nature are 
the several accounts of Job, Ruth, and Esther ; but they are far from 
being unconnected with the principal design of the sacred writers ; 
inasmuch as they show that the same divine Providence which presid- 
ed over the nation at large, extended its particular care to individ- 
uals, and that the examples of private virtue were inseparable from 
the great interests of public welfare and happiness. 

6. The Israelites, for many ages separated from the rest of man- 
kind by their peculiar institutions, were little acquainted with com- 
merce, and made small advances in those arts, which, with a refine- 
ment, and a diversity of employments, introduce luxury and corrup- 
tion of manners. They were governed by equal laws, and possessed 
nearly equal property. They admitted no hereditary distinction of 
rank, except in favour of the regal tribe of Judah, and the sacer- 
dotal family of Levi. Their occupations from the earliest times were 
of the most simple kind, and consisted in pasturage and agriculture. 
To guide the plough, and tend the flock, were employments which, 
recommended by the innocence of primeval manners, and dignified 
by length of time, were exercised by kings, prophets, and generals. 
Moses was called from feeding his flock, to conduct the Israelites to 
the promised land ; Elisha forsook the plough, to be invested with 
the mantle of prophecy ; and Gideon left the threshing floor, to lead 
the army of his country to battle. 

7. The country of Judea presented a scene diversified by fruit- 
ful vallies, barren rocks, and lofty mountains, and was watered by 
numerous streams. It produced the palm-tree, the balsam, the vine, 
the olive, the fig, and all the fruits which abound in the more tem- 
perate regions of Asia. From the labours of the field, and from cul- 
tivating the vine, the attention of the Israelites was regularly called 
by religious worship, which was intimately blended with the civil 
constitution of the state. The splendour of their public services, the 
pomp and magnificence of their rites and ceremonies, the stated re- 
currence of their various festivals and sacrifices, the sabbath, the 
passover, the celebration of the sabbatical year, and the jubilee ; and. 
more than all, the constant experience of divine interposition, filled 
their minds with the most awful and grand ideas, and gave them the 
deepest impressions of the majesty, power, goodness, and justice of 
God. 

* Moses, B. C. 1,571. Nehemiah, B. C. 546. Gray's Key to the Old 
Testament, p. 124. 



238 JEWISH HISTORY. 

8. These were the circumstances which, combining to form their 
national manners, had the greatest influence upon their writings. 
The historical style is marked by the purest simplicity of ideas, oc- 
casionally raised to a tone of elevation. In the works of Moses there 
is a majesty of thought, which is most strikingly expressed in plain 
and energetic language. In the prophetical writings the greatest 
splendour and sublimity of composition are conspicuous. They are 
enriched by those glowing images, and raised by that grandeur of 
diction, which charm the classical reader in the most admired pro- 
ductions of Greece and Rome. The royal psalmist is eloquent, dig- 
nified, and pathetic. All the beauties of composition unite in Isaiah, 
such is the majesty of his ideas, the propriety, beauty, and fertility 
of his imagery, and the elegance of his language, employed upon the 
noblest subjects which could possibly engage our attention. Jere- 
miah excels in those expressions of tenderness, which excite, with 
the most pleasing enthusiasm, the feelings of compassion. 

9. By such peculiar beauties of composition are recommended 
the most interesting details of events, and the most faithful deline- 
ations of characters. The great Creator calls all things into ex- 
istence with his omnipotent word. The first parents of mankind, 
innocent and happy, are blessed with his immediate converse, and 
enjoy the blooming groves of Paradise. Joseph, the pious, the 
chaste, and the wise, after having undergone great afflictions, and 
rising by his extraordinary merit to an office of the highest honour 
in the court of Pharaoh, discovers himself in a manner the most 
pathetic to his repentant brethren, and is restored to his aged and 
affectionate father, whom he invites into Egypt to share his pros- 
perity. The children of Israel, guided by the divine Power, which 
veils its glory in a cloud, pass safely through the Red Sea, in which 
the host of the impious Pharaoh are overwhelmed. Upon the sum- 
mit of Mount Sinai Moses receives the two tables of the command" 
ments, amid the thunder, lightning, clouds, and darkness, which 
obscure the great Jehovah from his eyes. The royal psalmist sings 
the wonders of creation, the powers of his God, and his own de- 
feats and triumphs. The peaceful and prosperous Solomon, whose 
renown was extended over all the east, rears the structure of the 
magnificent temple ; and amid the multitudes of his adoring sub- 
jects consecrates it to the service of the one true God, in a prayer 
which equally attests his wisdom and his piety. In the visions of 
futurity Isaiah beholds the deliverance of the chosen people ; the 
complete destruction of the great empire of Babylon, by which 
they were enslaved ; and the promised Messiah, the Saviour of 
mankind, sometimes depressed by want and sorrow, and sometimes 
arrayed in the emblems of divine majesty and power. He predicts 
the final recal of the Jews to their native land, and the wide diffu- 
sion of the christian faith. Jeremiah sinks a weeping mourner over 
the ruins of his native city, deplores its calamities, and consoles his 
countrymen by expressly declaring, that they should never cease 
to be a nation to the end of the world. Daniel explains to Bel- 
shazzar the mystic characters inscribed upon the walls of his palace, 
and views, in his wide prospect of future times, the fates of the four 
great empires of the world. Cyrus, long before announced by 
Isaiah, as the great subverter of the Babylonish empire, and the 
restorer of the glory of Jerusalem, publishes his decree for the 
restoration of the captive Jews ; and the holy city and temple 
rise from their ruins with new grandeur and magnificence. The 



JEWISH HISTORY. 239 

Jews are settled and reformed by the pious care of Nehemiah, and 
the canon of the scriptures is closed by Malachi. This last of the 
prophets enjoins the strict observance of the law of Moses, till the 
great Precursor should appear, in the spirit of Elias, to announce 
the approach of the Messiah, who was to establish a new and an 
everlasting covenant.* 

10. Such are a few of the interesting circumstances contained in 
the books of the Old Testament, which engage our attention, charm 
our imagination, and gratify our curiosity, while they confirm oui 
belief in the great evidences of revelation. In all these works 
we may remark the bright truths of religious instruction, shining 
Corth amid the venerable simplicity of the most ancient history ; a 
oistory unrivalled for the grandeur of the ideas which it conveys, 
the liveliness of its descriptions, and the number of its beautiful and 
sublime images. 

11. In these books of sacred history there is an impartiality ot 
narrative, which is an undoubted characteristic of truth. If we 
read the Lives of Plutarch, or the History of Livy, we soon dis- 
cover that these writers composed their works under the influence 
of many prejudices in favour of their respectives countries. A veil 
is thrown over the defects of their heroes, but their virtues are 
placed in a strong light, and painted in vivid colours. In the scrip- 
tures, on the contrary, both of the Old and the New Testament, the 
strictest impartiality prevails. The vices of David, Solomon, and 
their successors, are neither concealed nor palliated. There is no 
ostentation of vanity, no parade of panegyric ; virtue charms with 
her native beauty, and vice requires no disguise to conceal her de- 
formity. The characters of persons are sketched, and the effects of 
the passions are represented without reserve or concealment; and 
the moral to be drawn from each description is so obvious, as to ac- 
count for the frequent omission of remarks and applications. The 
abject condition of the Jews, when prohibited the use of weapons of 
war by the victorious Philistines ; their relapses into idolatry, their 
perverseness of disposition, and their various defeats and captivities, 
with every circumstance of private as well as public disgrace, are 
recorded without palliation or reserve. Always rising superior to 
the motives which induce other authors to violate the purity and de- 
grade the majesty of truth, these writers keep one great and most 
important end constantly in view, and show the various methods by 
which the providence of God effected his gracious designs ; how he 
produced good from evil, and employed the sins and follies of man- 
kind as the instruments of his gracious purposes 

12. An acquaintance with the affairs of the Jewish nation forms 
the first link in the chain cf ancient records. Thus we may observe 
the connexion which subsists between the branches of sacred and 
profane history. We place the works of pagan writers in their 
proper situation, and give them additional value, by making them 
subservient to the cause of religion, and instrumental in the illustra- 
tion of revealed truth. If the student is not called upon by profes- 
sional inducements to read the scriptures in their original languages, 
he may rest contented with translations; and it seems to be a well- 

# For these very impiessive passages of the Bible, see Gen. i, ii, xliv, 
xiv ; Exod. xiv, xx ; the Psalms ; 1 Kings viii ; Isaiah ii, vi, ix, x, xi, xiv, 
xxviii, xxxii, xl, xliii, lx, lxi, lxiii, lxv, and more particularly liii ; La- 
ment, i, &c. ; Daniel v, vii ; Ezra vii ; Nehem. xiii ; Malachi iii. iv. 



240 JEWISH HISTORY. 

founded opinion among the learned, that he may rely with confidence 
upon the general fidelity of our English version. 

SECTION V. 
OF THE ANTEDILUVIAN WORLD. 

1. An authentic account of the creation of the world, and of the 
primitive state of mankind is to be found only in the bible. There 
we are informed by Moses, the most ancient of all historians, that in 
the beginning God created the earth, the celestial bodies, and all 
things both animate and inanimate ; that he created one man and one 
woman, named Adam and Eve, and placed them in a garden or para- 
dise, situated in the land of Eden. According to the best chronoio- 
gers the creation of the world was accomplished in the year 4,004 
A. C. Adam and Eve soon transgressed the commands of God, and 
were therefore expelled from their delightful abode. 

2. Adam and Eve had two sons, whose names were Cain and Abel. 
Cain, the elder, was a husbandman, and Abel was a shepherd. Cain 
was of a vicious, Abel of a virtuous disposition. Hence the worship 
of Abel was more acceptable to the Lord than that of Cain. Insti- 
gated by envy and malice, Cain killed his brother when they were 
together in the field. For this atrocious crime he was severely pun- 
ished by the Lord, and became " a fugitive and a vagabond upon the 
earth." 

3. After the murder of Abel, another son, named Seth, was born 
to Adam. From this time the descendants of Adam multiplied rapid- 
ly, and at length spread over the face of the earth. 

4. One of the most remarkable circumstances of the former world 
is the longevity of the people. Adam lived 930 years, Seth 912 
years, Jared 962 years, Methuselah 969 years, Noah 950 years. 

5. In process of time mankind became so wicked that the Lord 
was resolved to destroy them by a delude. Amid the general cor- 
ruption and depravity of the human race one virtuous man was found. 
Noah, the son of Lamech, zealous for the reformation of men, be- 
came a preacher of righteousness to the degenerate and vicious 
people among whom he lived, and employed both his council and au- 
thority to reclaim them ; but in vain. And God commanded Noah to 
build a great ship, called an ark, and to put in it his wife, his three 
sons and their wives, and also a few males and females of every spe- 
cies of living things, that they might be saved from the general del- 
uge which would shortly overwhelm the whole earth, and extirpate 
all creatures. The flood continued 150 days, and then gradually sub- 
sided. Noah and his family, and all the animals, went out of the 
ark (2,343 A. C.) ; and in process of time they multiplied and spread 
over the surface of the earth, as we now see them. 

6. Of the literary and scientific attainments of the antediluvians 
we know very little. From the Mosaic account they do not appear 
to have been great. Moses has briefly informed us what was the 
origin of various customs and arts, and has recorded the names of 
their inventors. Lamech the son of Cain gave the first example of 
polygamy. Cain built the first city, and introduced the use of 
weights and measures. One of Cain's grandsons " was the father of 
such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle." Jubal invented 
music; Tubal Cain the arts of forging iron, and of casting brass; 
and a woman called Naamah the arts of spinning and weaving, 



JEWISH HISTORY. 

Their religious rites were few and simple. They worshipped God 
by prayer, and sacrifices of certain animals. 



SECTION VI. 
FIRST AGES AFTER THE DELUGE. 

1. The remembrance of the three sons of Noah, the first foun- 
ders of the nations of the earth after the deluge, has been preserved 
among the several nations descended from them. Japhet peopled 
the greater part of the west, and continued long famous under the 
name of Japetus. Ham was reverenced as a deity by the Egyptians, 
under the title of Jupiter Hammon. The memory of Shem has 
always been venerated by his descendants, the Hebrews, who de- 
rived their name from his son Heber. 

2. Except the building of the tower of Babel no event of impor- 
tance occurs in the history of Moses during the space of nearly 
1,100 years from the deluge to the call of Abraham. About 100 
years after the deluge the descendants of Noah were become nu- 
merous at the foot of Mount Ararat, and in the plain of Shinaar, ex- 
tending along the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris. They 
found that the country was not extensive enough to contain them 
much longer, and therefore that they must separate. They agreed 
to build a very high tower, which might be a signal of union, if they 
should ever desire to return to their native country. When they had 
raised the tower to a certain height, the workmen suddenly perceiv 
ed that they did not understand the words of one another, and that 
all spoke different languages. Consequently it was impossible to 
continue the work, and the people dispersed in different directions. 
Hence the origin of different languages, and the dispersion of the 
human race over the habitable globe. 

3. Soon after this memorable event, Nimrod, a vjcAs^I sjnd impe- 
rious man, built the city of Babel, or Babylon, and laid the founda 
tion of the first great empire, called the Babylonian, which was 
afterwards so famous in the history of the Jews. 



SECTION VII. 
OF THE JEWS. 

1. The Jews derived their origin from Abraham, the son of Terah, 
the tenth in lineal descent from Shem the son of Noah. The de 
scendants of Shem spread from Armenia, where the ark is supposed 
to have rested after the deluge, to Mesopotamia, and thence into 
Chaldea, where Abraham was born. As Abraham was appointed tj 
be the progenitor of a great and distinguished nation, God separated 
him from the other descendants of Shem, by causing Terah to re- 
move from Chaldea into the country of Haram, near the borders of 
Mesopotamia, where he died. Abraham intended to settle in Haram. 
but in obedience to the will of God, he removed into the land of 
Canaan, which was appointed to be the inheritance of his posterity. 
From tnis period commences a long series of events, which are re- 
corded in the book of Genesis, and are represented as immediately 
directed by the Lord. 

2. After Abraham arrived in Canaan, his first care was to erect an 

X 31 



242 JEWISH HISTORY. 

altai for the worship of God, who appeared to him, and confirmed 
the promise which he had before made to him, to give the country 
to his children. When he had lived some time in Canaan, a fam- 
ine compelled him to remove his family into Egypt, (1,916 A. C), 
where he resided till the famine ceased, and then returned. His 
wife Sarah, when she was advanced in years, brought him a son, 
who was called Isaac. When Isaac grew to man's estate he married 
Rebecca, who was afterward the mother of Jacob. In process of 
time Jacob had ten sons, who were the fathers of ten tribes. By the 
eommand of the Lord, Jacob took the name of Israel, and hence his 
posterity were called Israelites, or the children of Israel. 

3. Joseph, the ninth son, was the favourite of his father, which 
excited the jealousy and hatred of his elder brothers, who sold him 
to some merchants, and told Jacob that he had been devoured by 
wild beasts. The merchants carried their slave into Egypt, and 
sold him to Potiphar, an officer of king Pharaoh's guard, 1,724 A. 
C. Joseph served Potiphar with such diligence and fidelity, that he 
soon committed to him the care of his domestic affairs. 

The wife of Potiphar repeatedly attempted to seduce Joseph into 
the gratification of her amorous propensities ; but her immodest ad 
vances being rejected with disdain, she was incensed, and malicious- 
ly accused him of an attempt to violate her chastity. On this false 
accusation he was immediately thrown into prison, but was soon 
liberated by the king. Such is, in all ages and in all countries, the 
vindictive disposition of a lascivious woman, whose allurements have 
been neglected or resisted. The disappointed wanton prosecutes, 
with everlasting enmity, the innocent object of her carnal desires ! 

4. Joseph, being skilful in the interpretation of dreams, was intro- 
duced to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who was perplexed by two dreams 
which he could not explain. Joseph interpreted his dreams, which 
predicted abundant products of the earth for seven years, and after 
*vard a dreadful famine for seven years. He was released from pris- 
on, and appointed to conduct the affairs of Egypt under Pharaoh. 

5. In consequence of the famine with which Canaan was afflicted 
(as it had been foretold), Jacob and his family removed into Egypt, 
1,702 A. C. Joseph assigned them a residence in the land of Goshen, 
a fertile country fit for pasturage, situated between the Nile and the 
Red Sea. In this happy country the descendants of Jacob increased 
and flourished, and became so numerous and prosperous that at 
length the envy and fears of the Egyptians began to be excited 
against them. To check their prosperity rigorous measures were 
pursued by the rulers of Egypt. Their lives were imbittered by 
hard service, and all their male children were ordered to be drowned 
at their birth. 

6. Till the time of their residence in the land of Goshen, the He- 
brews had led a pastoral life, and had not been subject to any regular 
form of government. Children were obedient to their parents, and 
servants to their masters. Religion appeared in its most simple and 
amiable form. One God, the Creator and Governor of the world, 
was worshipped without images, and without an established priest- 
hood. Equal purity in faith and worship, in principle and practice, 
prevailed among the people. But in proportion as wealth and 
luxury increased, the religion of the Hebrews became more sensual. 
Like all eastern nations they were prone to the worship of the heav- 
enly bodies. Priestcraft employed images, and the delusive artifices 
of superstition to attract the devotion of the people. 



JEWISH HISTORY. 243 

7. The history of the Hebrews, during the patriarchal ages, is 
related in the first book of Moses, with simplicity, minuteness, and 
apparent fidelity. There we read a description of ancient customs 
and manners in the lives of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob. The story of Joseph and his brethren has been always 
admired for the simplicity of the language, and the affecting cir- 
cumstances which it exhibits. As the numerous facts and incidents 
in the early periods of the history of the Hebrews are familiar to 
every reader, and are besides of little importance in the political 
annals of the nation, it seems superfluous to enter into a detail of 
them. We shall therefore next present a compendious view of the 
history of the Hebrews from the period of their departure out of 
Egypt, 1,487 A. C. 

8. After much oppression and suffering, God raised up a deliverer 
of his chosen people, who rescued them from a state of cruel servi- 
tude, and brought them out of the land of bondage. This deliverer 
was Moses, the most distinguished personage of ancient times, born 
1,567 A. C. In consequence of Pharaoh's inhuman decree, Moses 
was exposed by his mother on the banks of the Nile, and was found 
by the king's daughter, who compassionately adopted him, and thus 
saved his life. Before their departure from Egypt, and in their long 
and tedious journey of forty years through the wilderness, many 
extraordinary and supernatural events are recorded in the Bible, and 
ascribed to the miraculous interposition of the Lord in behalf of his 
people. During their wanderings in the desert, they received from 
their illustrious guide, with many other signal proofs of divine favour, 
a system of religion and laws, under the sanction of God. 

9. The Mosaic code, though the most ancient that has been trans- 
mitted to posterity, contains the best maxims of legislative wisdom. 
It is an admirable summary of our various duties to God and man , 
and it enforces the observance of those duties by the powerful mo- 
tives of gratitude, hope, and fear. It directs our adoration to one 
God, the author of all blessings ; commands us to reverence his holy 
name ; and denounces dreadful vengeance against those who shall 
transfer to idols, or to the creature, that worship which is due only 
to the Creator. To prevent the neglect of those sacred obligations, 
it ordains a Sabbath every week, to be set apart for rest, and for pious 
meditation on the works and the beneficence of God. Four of the 
statutes of the Mosaic code comprehend the principles of universal 
iurisprudence. 1. ITiou shalt not kill. 2. Thou shalt not commit adul- 
tery. 3. Thou shalt not steal. 4. Thou shalt not bear false witness. 
They have formed the basis of criminal law in all civilized nations, 
and are essential to the good order of society. They conclude with 
an dmonition against avarice, the incentive to the commission of all 
offences. 

10. While Moses lived in Egypt he must have remarked the bane- 
ful effects of the abuse of unlimited power entrusted to priests. He 
therefore wisely separated the sacerdotal jurisdiction from the civil. 
The ministers of religion were not allowed to interfere in secular 
affairs. Their duties were confined to the worship of God ; and 
their civil authority extended no farther than to take cognizance of 
such offences or trespasses as were immediately connected with re- 
ligious worship. The care and direction of all secular concerns were 
committed to the elders of the people, who administered justice un- 
der the control of a supreme magistrate ? emphatically styled a 
judge. In the judge was vested all power civil and military. It ap- 



244 JEWISH HISTORY. 

pears however that the high priest at length invaded the military 
prerogative of the judge. 

11. Sensible of the ignorance and perverseness of the people 
under his care, Moses omitted no precepts nor instructions which 
he thought might tend to inform their minds, to regulate their con- 
duct, to correct their vicious propensities, and to promote their wel- 
fare and security. He prescribed rules for their diet, for the preser- 
vation of their health, and for the treatment and cure of those 
diseases to which they were most liable. Having conducted the 
Israelites through many dangers and difficulties within sight of the 
promised land, and appointed Joshua his successor, Moses died in 
1.447 A. C. 



SECTION VIII. 

THE HISTORY OF THE HEBREWS DURING THE GOVERNMENT 
OF THE JUDGES. 

1 . This period ig extremely turbulent and sanguinary j a period 
of barbarism, ignorance, and anarchy. We know not certainly how 
the judges were chosen, nor what was the extent of their power 
They appear to have been military chiefs, for they commanded 
armies, and some of them acquired fame by successful expeditions 
against the enemies of their country. 

2 The chiefs or rulers of the Syrian kingdoms, principalities, or 
townships, had chosen no common leader, or generalissimo, nor 
digested any regular plan of defence against the Hebrews, who had 
been long hovering on the frontiers of Syria, and betrayed hostile 
intentions ; consequently many of these petty states on both sides 
of the river Jordan were subdued, and the inhabitants massacred, 
before any league was formed for their mutual defence. At lergth 
they became apprehensive of utter destruction from their fierce 
and cruel invaders, and a general alliance was concerted among the 
remaining kings and chiefs of the country between the Jordan and 
the Mediterranean sea. Joshua twice attacked the combined army 
unexpectedly, and defeated it with great slaughter. Most of the in- 
habitants, except those who resided in impregnable cities on the sea 
coast, were put to the sword, or compelled to flee from the ven- 
geance of their enemy. Their possessions were divided among 
the tribes of Israel ; and thus the victorious Hebrews conquered 
and occupied the southern parts of Syria, called J udea or Canaan, 
and still known by the name of Palestine. Joshua having on many 
occasions received miraculous assistance in the perilous conquest of 
Canaan, and in the execution of the arduous and important offices of 
a government of incessant activity and energy, died in 1,439 A. C. 
leaving the Israelites in the quiet enjoyment of the country which 
the Lord had formerly promised to Abraham and his posterity. 

3. After the conquest of Canaan the Hebrews did not continue 
long to observe and obey the institutions of Moses. They fell into 
apostacy and confusion. They were alternately harassed by intestine 
commotions, and reduced to temporary bondage by the nations which 
they had before conquered. Wnen relieved from the miseries of a 
foreign yoke, they commonly became subject to the more grievous 
oppressions of domestic tyranny. But in the various changes of their 



JEWISH HISTORY. 245 

manners and fortunes, it is remarkable that some of their gross- 
est idolatries, and severest afflictions, happened when the civil power 
and the authority of the priesthood were exercised by the same 
person. 

4. After the death of Joshua the Israelites were governed by elders 
about 20 years. Then followed an anarchy of about 1 8 years, during 
which they were engaged in many successful and unsuccessful wars, 
and were often reduced to servitude. 

After the government of the Hebrews had continued with little 
interruption, about 295 years, under twelve successive judges, in the 
form prescribed by Moses, Eli, the high-priest united in his person 
those powers and functions which, before his accession to the 
supreme magistracy, had been kept distinct. Eli appears to have 
been equally incapable of discharging the civil, the military, and the 
religious duties of his high offices. The people fell into idolatry, 
and were subjugated by an ancient nation called the Philistines. In 
a great battle with the Philistines the army of the Hebrews was 
routed with dreadful slaughter, and the two profligate sons of Eli 
were killed. The news of this disaster put an end to the life of Eli, 
after he had governed the Israelites forty years. 

5. The next and last judge of the Hebrews was Samuel the 
prophet, 1,112 A. C. He brought back the people to a sense of their 
duty, and soon restored the departed glory of Israel by a great vic- 
tory over the Fhilistines. They now recovered their liberty, and 
the cities which had been taken from them in former wars. Samuel 
was indefatigable in the administration of justice. When age had 
rendered him incapable of executing his laborious duties, he united 
his two sons with him in the administration of the government. 
But their evil conduct offended the people, who complained to Sam- 
uel that his sons were not worthy to succeed him as judges. They 
demanded a king to govern them. Samuel therefore assembled the 
people, and explained to them the extreme danger of changing their 
ancient form of government to that of a monarchy ; but in vain. 
They persisted in their resolution, and a man named Saul was ap- 
pointed the first king of the Hebrews, after the government by 
judges had subsisted, with some intermission, about 356 years, from 
Joshua to Saul. 



SECTION IX. 

RETROSPECT OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE HEBREWS. 

1. The advancement of Saul to the regal dignity was the second 
change made in the constitution given by Moses. The common* 
wealth was originally a theocracy ; and the people acknowledged 
no other king but God. They paid respect to the priests, as the 
superintendents of his worship ; and they obeyed the judges, as 
the interpreters of his laws, and the delegates of his power. The 
succession to the priesthood was fixed, being made hereditary in 
the family of Aaron. The office of ruler, or judge, being apparent- 
ly left to the appointment of God, and determinable neither by the 
choice of the people, nor by lineal descent, gave access to disturbance* 
violence, and intrigue. Moses prevented any public commotion by 
naming and consecrating a successor to himself. 
X2 



$46 JEWISH HISTORY. 

2. After the death oi J oshua intestine divisions, or rather a spirit 
of licentiousness and rapine, threw the nation into a state of anarchy 
and confusion. As this disunion and civil disorder exposed them to 
the invasions of the adjacent states, miiitary talents and success were 
regarded as infallible proofs of divine favour, and conferred upon any 
person so distinguished, the title and authority of judge. Gideon 
obtained many signal victories over the Philistines, the inveterate 
enemies of the Hebrews, and enriched his soldiers with plunder. 
Out of gratitude for his services, the people offered to make him 
and his posterity their rulers. Though he declined the name of 
judge, yet he retained the power, and appropriated to himself the 
most valuable part of the spoils of his enemies. His natural son 
Abimelech succeeded to the office of judge by force and violence. 
Sacred history does not inform us how the next two judges obtained 
their dignity. After them the supreme power was committed to one 
of Gilead's illegitimate issue, on account of his valour and military 
talents. Thus the office of judge continued to fluctuate till it was 
annexed to the high priesthood in the person of Eli, as has been re- 
lated. The death of his two vicious sons interrupted the succession 
in his line. The office was lastly conferred on Samuel, whose un- 
just and rapacious sons were thought unworthy to succeed him. The 
people having received no permanent benefits from the administra- 
tion either of judges or of priests, resolved to appoint a king to goverr 
them. This political innovation was the result of levity and impa 
tience rather than of mature deliberation. It neither gave stability to 
the new government nor prevented the evils of the old. 



SECTION X. 
REGAL GOVERNMENT OF THE HEBREWS. 

1. The reign of Saul began about 1,091 A. C. He was a shep- 
herd of lofty stature. The beginning of his reign was auspicious, 
and distinguished by a complete victory gained over the Ammonites, 
which made him popular among his subjects. But he incurred the 
displeasure of Samuel, the prophet, and his whole reign of 40 years, 
was a continued scene of foreign or domestic troubles. Being de- 
feated in a battle with the Philistines in 1,051 A. C, he killed him- 
self. 

2. Two candidates preferred their claim to the vacant throne, 
Ish-bosheth, Saul's son, founded his pretensions on the right of im- 
mediate descent, and was supported by many of the tribes. David, 
a young shepherd, was famous for killing, with a stone thrown from 
a sling, a Philistine named Goliath, a man of gigantic size and 
strength. He had likewise been privately anointed by Samuel 
before the death of Saul ; and his title, as of divine appointment, 
was therefore acknowledged by the powerful tribe of Judah. A 
civil war ensued, which lasted above seven years, and was terminat- 
ed by the assassination of Ish-bosheth. All the tribes now submit- 
ted to David, and the kingdom became hereditary in his family, 
though the right of succession was still unsettled, and was transfer- 
able from one branch to another at the will of the reigning sover 
eign. This appears from Solomon's succession to the throne in 
preference to his elder brother. 

3. The reign of David is illustrious and interesting. He enlarged 



JEWISH HISTORY. 247 

the bounds of Palest ne by conquest, took Jerusalem, which he made 
the capital of his dominions, and enriched himself and his subjects 
with the spoils of his enemies. He revived among the people an 
attachment to religion by the institution of solemn ceremonies ; and 
he introduced a taste for the arts, by inviting into the country able 
mechanics and artists for the completion of the grand edifices which 
he erected. 

4. The latter part of David's reign was unfortunate. The king- 
dom was ravaged by pestilence, famine, and disastrous wars. His 
mind was harassed by domestic misfortunes. Some of his sons were 
disobedient and wicked. His favourite son Absalom raised a rebel- 
lion with a design to dethrone his father; but was defeated and slain. 
David caused his son Solomon to be crowned in 1,011 A. C, and died 
in 1,010 A. C, having reigned seven years and a half over Judah, 
and 33 years over all Israel. 

5. The reign of Solomon presents a splendid view of the kingdom 
of Israel in the height of its prosperity, felicity, and glory, enjoying 
all the blessings of tranquillity in such a manner, and tor such a 
length of time, as it never experienced in any former or subsequent 
period. It directed the councils of all the petty states between the 
Euphrates and the Mediterranean ; and held the balance of power 
between the two great monarchies of Egypt and Assyria. Com- 
merce flourished in a degree which, at that early period of the world, 
must appear extraordinary. The fleets of Israel, under the direc- 
tion of Tyrian mariners, traded to the land of Ophir, which some 
suppose to be a district in Ethiopia, on the eastern coast of Africa. 
To this country they probably went by the Red Sea'. By their lu- 
crative voyages they augmented the wealth of the nation, which 
David had already enriched by the spoils of war. But this agreea- 
ble and prosperous condition did not continue long. Solomon, elated 
by uniform prosperity, set no bounds to his magnificence and luxury, 
and laid heavy taxes on the people to enable him to support his pro- 
fuse expenditure. These burdensome imposts created disaffection 
in the minds of his subjects, and toward the end of his reign gave 
rise to a powerful faction, at the head of which was a haughty and 
impetuous young man called Jeroboam. 

6. The most remarkable event in the reign of Solomon is the 
building of a magnificent temple at Jerusalem, which was completed 
m about seven years. The plan had been formed by David, and 
materials, workmen, and money, provided for its execution. This 
was probably the most superb and costly fabric that has been erected 
in ancient times. 

The wisdom of Solomon is proverbial. The books of Proverbs 
and Ecclesiastes are ascribed to him, either as the author or col- 
lector ; and abound with precepts and maxims that are applicable to 
every condition of life. But notwithstanding the superior knowl- 
edge for which Solomon was so justly celebrated, he appears to have 
been immersed in sensual pleasures. He had 700 wives of different 
countries and religions^ beside 300 concubines ! The allurements of 
those voluptuous women led him into effeminacy, and the excess- 
ive indulgence of the animal passions, and into the neglect of his 
important duties to God and his people ; and their influence and su- 
perstitions at length drew him into idolatry. This illustrious and 
renowned monarch reigned 40 years, and died in 971 A. C, without 
leaving any memorial of his power. 

7. With Solomon expired the grandeur and the tranquillity of the 



248 JEWISH HISTORY. 

Hebrews. Upon the accession of his son Rehoboam to the throne 
the faction of Jeroboam broke out into open rebellion, and terminat- 
ed in the revolt of the ten tribes from their allegiance to the house 
of David. The tribes of Judah and Benjamin continued loyal to 
their lawful sovereign. The revolted tribes elected Jeroboam for 
their king, and the monarchy was split into the two separate king- 
doms of Israel and Judah, 971 A. C. 

8. The policy of Jeroboam produced a religious as well as a po- 
litical separation. While the kings of J udah held the temple where 
the sacrifices were offered, and whither all the people were obliged 
to resort at stated times, they would always have an ascendancy 
over the kingdom of Israel. Jeroboam therefore thought it neces- 
sary to adopt some measures to prevent the frequent visits of his 
subjects to Jerusalem, the metropolis of the kingdom of Judah. 
The priests, the Levites, and all who were concerned in the ministry 
of religion, were firmly attached to the house of David ; and Jero- 
boam supposed that they would naturally exert the inliuence which 
religion gave them over the minds of the people, to alienate their 
affection from his governments and to bring thern back to their alle- 
giance to their lawful sovereign. To prevent the obvious conse- 
quences of the continuance of his subjects in religious communion 
with the house of David and kingdom of Judah, Jeroboam sacrificed 
the interest of religion to his political motives. He built a new 
temple, and instituted a new priesthood ; and thus produced a new 
schism among the followers of the Mosaical laws, which was never 
extinguished. Soon after this separation, the religion of the ten 
tribes under Jeroboam, deviating more and more from the original 
institutions of Moses, became a mixture of Judaism and Pagan idol- 
atry. 

9. After this memorable epoch in the history of the Israelites we 
find little more in their annals than such transactions and events as 
constitute the ordinary subjects of political records. The kingdom 
of Judah adhered with inflexible attachment to princes of the house 
of David ; but usurpations in the kingdom of Israel were common. 
The history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah during a period of 
almost 400 years, till the burning of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnez- 
zar, may, with the exception of a few intervals, be called the an- 
nals of disunion, vice, wars, massacres, servitude, famine, and pesti- 
lence. In this long period of general wickedness and misery, one 
of the most remarkable events is a great battle fought between 
Jeroboam and Abijam the successor of Rehoboam. The army of 
the former consisted of eight hundred thousand men, that of the 
latter of four hundred thousand. Jeroboam was defeated, and five 
hundred thousand of his men were killed in the battle.* 

10. At last the kingdom of the ten tribes was extinguished. The 
people were transported into Assyria, and dispersed into different 
parts of the country, whence they never returned. The common 
people who were left in Canaan were intermixed with strangers ; 
and from that mixture of different nations sprung the motley race, 
which were afterward known by the name of Samaritans. The 
sad catastrophe of the kingdom of Israel is described by the proph- 
ets in very pathetic terms. The infants and pregnant women were 
murdered with horrid barbarity. The men, who had not been slain 
in battle, nor had not escaped by flight, were dragged into bondage, 

* The limits of this work do not admit a particular history of the gene- 
rally uninteresting reigns from this period to the Babylonish captivity. 



JEWISH HISTORY. 249 

and their country was divided among the colonies of the conquerors. 
This event happened about 720 A. C., after the kingdom had sub- 
sisted about 254 years. 

-11. The tottering kingdom of Judah still continued to enjoy a 
precarious existence ; invaded at different times by the Babylonians, 
rendered tributary, and finally subjugated ; its metropolis and temple 
razed to their foundations by that mighty conqueror Nebuchadnez- 
zar, 584 A. C. ; and all the principal persons, and the must skilful 
artists of every kind, removed to Babylon. Thus ends the kingdom 
of Judea, after it had subsisted 468 years from the beginning of the 
reign of David, and 388 years from the separation ot Judah and the 
:en tribes. 



SECTION XL 

RESTORATION OF THE JEWS TO THEIR LIBERTY AND 
COUNTRY. 

1 . The privation of liberty, and the miseries of bondage seem to 
have brought the people of Israel and J udah to a sense of their past 
transgressions. Unable to resist the power of man, they now placed 
their sole confidence in the goodness and mercy of God. Neither 
promises nor threats could induce them to abandon their duty, and 
worship the idols of the heathens. 

2. After they had been in captivity 70 years, Cyrus, king of Persia, 
having conquered Babylon, set them at liberty, and issued a decree, 
by which they were permitted to return to their own country, and 
to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, 543 A. C. He restored to 
them all the sacred utensils which Nebuchadnezzar had taken away 
from the temple. He laid down a plan of the new temple, and 
ordered that the expense of erecting it should be paid out of the 
royal treasury. All who desired it were allowed to remain in their 
present places of residence, and to contribute as much as they pleas- 
ed to the holy edifice. 

It may be proper to observe in this place, that the Israelites who 
returned from the captivity of Babylon were then and ever after- 
ward called Jews, because the tribe of J udah was the most power- 
ful of all the tribes of Israel, and indeed almost the only one which 
was considerable after their restoration to their liberty and country 

3. Many of the Israelites chose to remain at Babylon. Those 
who returned to Palestine began the work of the temple with alac- 
rity and vigour. Its progress suffered a temporary obstruction 
through the intrigues of their enemies, and the caprice of Cyrus's 
immediate successors. But in the beginning of the reign of Darius, 
the decree of Cyrus in favour of the Jews was ratified, and many 
new clauses were added for their effectual assistance and security. 
A particular charge was given to the governors of Syria and Sama^ 
ria, not only to prevent any further obstruction of the work, but also 
to furnish supplies out of the tribute of those provinces for carrying 
it on with greater expedition ; and it was declared that all persona 
who should act contrary to these instructions would be punished with 
death. 

4. Darius continued to manifest his favour for the Jews, during 
the remainder of his long reign. Their privileges were confirmed 
to them by his son Xerxes. Their interest was still greater with 

33 



250 JEWISH HISTORY. 

Artaxerxes, the Ahasuerus of scripture, through the influence of his 
queen Esther, a Jewess, and also through the services of her uncle 
Mordecai, who had discovered and frustrated a conspiracy against the 
king's life. From Artaxerxes, Ezra obtained very liberal donations, 
to be applied to the service of the temple ; and full powers to gov- 
ern the Jews as the divine will should direct. The like commission 
was also granted to Nehemiah, who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, 
and reformed many abuses both civil and religious. 

After these two we find no more governors of Judea, which prob- 
ably became subject to the governor of Syria, from whom the high- 
priests might immediately derive their authority. In this prosperous 
state were the Jews about 420 years before the christian era. 

5. From this time we may ascribe most of the misfortunes which 
befel the Jewish nation to men who aspired at the sacerdotal dignity 
through ambition and avarice more than zeal for religion. For 
whole centuries the office of high-priest was the chief object of men's 
ambition. The candidates purchased the office from the Syrian gov- 
ernors, and retained it by means of money. Hence they oppressed 
the people with taxes that they might fulfil their pecuniary engage- 
ments. There was no energy among this degraded people, no dig- 
nity among the great, no foresight, no thought of pursuing proper 
measures against foreign invasion. 

6. About 328 A. C. Alexander the great besieged Tyre, and was 
incensed against the Jews, because they had refused to supply his 
army with provisions during the siege. After the capture of Type 
he marched to Jerusalem with the intention of punishing the Jews 
for their disobedience of his orders. Jaddua the high-priest was 
ordered in a dream to meet the threatening conqueror in his pontifi- 
cal robes, at the head of all the priests in their proper habits, and 
attended by the rest of the people dressed in white garments. 
Alexander was struck with this religious pomp, and approaching 
the high-priest with awful respect, embraced him with a religious 
kind of veneration. He told his attendants, who expressed surprise at 
his submissive behaviour, that he did not pay this profound respect to 
the high-priest, but to the God whose minister he was. Alexander 
then went to Jerusalem, and offered sacrifice in the temple to the 
God of the Jews. Upon his departure he granted to the Jews the 
freedom of their country, laws, and religion, and exempted them 
from paying tribute every seventh year. During his whole reign 
they enjoyed great tranquillity ; but with him expired the prosperous 
state of their country. Judea was successively invaded and subdued 
by the Syrians and Egyptians, and the people were reduced to bon- 
dage. 

7. The Jews kept their sabbath so rigidly that they wou<!d not 
fight on that day, nor even defend themselves although attacked by 
an enemy. Ptolemy king of Egypt, having invaded Judea, took ad- 
vantage of this religious impediment. He entered Jerusalem on the 
sabbath-day without resistance, and carried away to Egypt a hundred 
thousand captives, 316 A. C. 

After this time the Jews became the victims of foreign and domes- 
tic wars, and of horrid massacres. 

8. About 198 A. C. Antiochus the great, king of Syria, took 
Jerusalem, plundered the temple, sold 40,000 Jews to the neigh- 
bouring nations, and established paganism throughout Judea. Tbe 
sacrifices ceased, and there scarcely existed any external signs of 
religion. 



JEWISH HISTORY. 251 

This persecution roused the resentment and provoked the resist- 
ance of a priest named Mattathias, and his five sons surnamed Mac- 
cabeus. They all retired into the wilderness, and were soon joined 
by a sweat number of Jews who wished to avoid idolatry and religious 
persecution. An army was raised, of which the command was given 
to the eldest son of Mattathias, named Judas Maccabeus. 

The deliverance of the Jews from the tyranny and oppression of 
the Greeks, by the uncommon talents, bravery, and patriotism of 
Judas Maccabeus, is an achievement as glorious perhaps as any per- 
formed by the most illustrious heroes of Greece and Rome. Having 
gained many signal victories, and delivered his country from bondage 
and idolatry, he was at last slain in battle, 157 A. C. 

9. The brothers of Judas, pursuing their advantages with perse- 
verance and exertion, established the independence of their country, 
and changed its republican government to a vigorous and flourishing 
monarchy. 

10. John Hyrcanus, son of Simon Maccabeus, uniting in his person 
the offices of high-priest and generalissimo of the army, and possess- 
ing all the talents requisite for the pontifical, the military, and the 
regal offices, vanquished the enemies of his country, and firmly estab- 
lished his government. His sons assumed the title as well as the 
power of kings ; and the high-priesthood remained in his family, 
though not in the person of the monarch. The descendants of Hyr- 
canus are distinguished, in the history of the Jewish nation, by the 
appellation of the Asmonean dynasty, which continued about 126 
years. 

11. The unlucky dissensions of this family terminated ultimately 
in the conquest of Judea and the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey 
the great, and the subjection of the Jewish nation to the Romans, 
59 A. C. 

12. After this event the Jewish monarchy was re-established by 
the favour and under the protection of the Romans, who placed 
Herod the great, the son of Antipater, on the throne of David 
This prince demolished the old temple of Jerusalem, and rebuilt 
it in a very magnificent manner. He reigned with great splendour, 
but with singular despotism and tyranny. He possessed great abili- 
ties, but was cruel and unjust both in his public and private transac- 
tions. His public life exhibits a continued scene of battles, massa- 
cres, and violence. He died in the first year of the birth of Christ, 
or the fourth of the vulgar era. 

The reign of Herod was distinguished by a memorable event, 
which has proved more important in its consequences than any that 
has occurred since the creation of the world, the bird of Jesus Christ, 
the author of the christian religion. 

13. Soon after the death of Herod, Judea was \< reality reduced 
to a Roman province, and the governors were appointed by the 
emperors of Rome. In this condition it remained till the final ex- 
tinction of the Jewish nation in the year of Christ 75, or of the vul- 
gar era 72. 

The rapine and cruelty ot Floras, governor of Judea, caused a 
rebellion of the Jews, in which 150,000 persons are said to have 
perished, G9 of Christ, or A. D. 6G. 

The violent and sanguinary factions among the Jews destroyed in- 
credible numbers of people of all ranks. 

14. At length the Jewish nation was extinguished by the Romans, 
and its metropolis reduced to ashes by Titus the Roman general 



252 JEWISH HISTORY. 

The last siege of Jerusalem was attended with scenes of carnage, 
famine, disease, and desperation, far more horrible than any to be 
found in the annals of human wickedness and misery. During the 
calamitous progress of the siege, Titus displayed many instances of 
numanity toward the sufferings of the besieged, and of his solicitude 
for the preservation of the city and temple ; but in vain. Their 
doom was predestinated by the irrevocable degree of the Almighty. 
The magnificent temple of the Jews perished in the general wreck 
of the nation, and not one stone was left upon another, 75 of Christ, 
or A. D. 72. 

According to a moderate calculation the number of persons who 
perished by violent deaths during the last war in Judea amounted to 
more than one million four hundred thousand, besides many who died 
of grief and famine. 

Since that time the descendants of those who survived the dissolu 
don of the Jewish nation have been wandering about the world, 
the objects of hatred and contempt rather than of kindness and com 
miseration. In all countries where they have been permitted to 
reside, they have been excluded from the participation of certain 
political privileges vyhich the people of those countries enjoy. 



SECTION XII. 

THE STATE OF LEARNING AND COMMERCE AMONG THE 

JEWS. 

1. Of all the interesting prospects which history opens to our 
view, the progressive advancement of the human mind, in the im- 
provement of its faculties, is the most agreeable, and the most 
worthy of our attention and regard. The brilliant and destructive 
exploits of conquerors may dazzle for awhile; but the silent labours 
of the student and the artist, of the architect and the husbandman, 
which embellish the earth and convert it into a paradise, confer per- 
manent benefits on mankind, and promote their prosperity and hap- 
piness. The arts and sciences distinguish the civilized man from the 
savage ; and the investigation of their origin and progress would 
constitute the noblest attribute of history. How unfortunate it is, 
that the ancient historians have almost neglected so interesting and 
pleasing a subject. All the knowledge which we can obtain concern- 
ing the origin and progress of learning must be gleaned from uncon- 
nected fragments and scattered notices, laboriously collected from 
a multifarious and confused mass of trivial particulars. 

2. The period of the scriptural history includes the whole space 
of time from the creation of the world' to the subversion of the 
Babylonian monarchy, or about 3,457 years. During this long sue* 
cession of ages a great variety of political, civil, and religious in- 
stitutions had been invented ; the human mind had been much im- 
proved in some countries ; agriculture had been skilfully practised ; 
the surface of the earth had been adorned with large cities and 
stately edifices. Of these interesting subjects, {ew particulars have 
been faithfully transmitted to posterity, except such as relate to Jew- 
ish laws and institutions, some scattered hints respecting ancient 
commerce, and some excellent specimens of writing in the Prophets 
and Psalms. In those venerable monuments of antiquity, the sacred 
writings, we trace the Israelites from the patriarchal ages, through 
the turbulent times of barbaric ignorance, to a considerable degree 



JLWISH HISTORY. 253 

of civilization arn^ refinement. Of their civil and religious institu- 
tions we have a clear and explicit account ; of their knowledge of 
the arts and sciences we possess little information. The Jews do not 
seem to have been a scientific or philosophical nation in any period 
of their history. They appear to have been sufficiently skilful in 
the arts of necessity and conveniency ; but not to have made much 
proficiency in those of luxury and ornament Some admirable speci- 
mens of literature are presented in the scriptures, especially in the 
writings of the Prophets, and in the Psalms. In the historical books 
we observe plainness of style and conciseness of narrative, and un- 
common perspicuity in the didactical pieces. The writings of the 
prophets are chiefly poetical, very different, and all originals. Most 
f them display sublime sentiments, expressed with energy of diction, 
and decorated with oriental imagery. 

3. In the patriarchal ages commerce was so far known and exer- 
cised that gold and silver were used as the medium by which it was 
regulated. In the tumultuous times which succeeded the patriarchal 
we obtain very little information concerning the state of commerce. 
We have no reason to think that commerce was ever in a flourishing 
state among the Jews. In times of remote antiquity the mechanic 
arts and various kinds of manufactures had made considerable prog- 
ress in some countries. This is manifest from the curious and rich 
materials of the tabernacle and of the high-priest's garments. The 
Israelites, no doubt, brought from Egypt much of their knowledge 
of arts, sciences, and literature ; for the Egyptians had, from time 
immemorial, been gradually advancing in learning a;.d civilization; 
and, during the greater part of the period now under contemplation, 
were famous for the excellence of their civil policy, the extent and 

Eopulation of their cities, the magnificence of their public edi- 
ces, and the flourishing state of agriculture. In all these respects 
the Egyptians were distinguished above all the contemporary nations 
of antiquity. 

CONCLUSION. 

1. In taking a retrospective view of the various nations whicn 
have successively appeared and flourished upon the grand theatre 
of this World, and have at length vanished and sunk into oblivion, 
their rise, progress, and decline, arrest our attention, and excite our 
curiosity and compassion. The ignorance, avarice, wickedness, and 
ambition of mankind may be assigned as the general causes of the 
dissolution of nations. Many of those kingdoms and states once so 
great and flourishing have not only disappeared, but even their names 
and all remembrance of them must have perished, if they had not 
been preserved and perpetuated in the historical records of scrip- 
ture. In them, however, we behold the transitory and fading splen- 
dour of all human glory, and a diminutive picture of every thing 
which the world calls great ; as eminence of genius and learning, 
military honour and fame, extent of power and dominion, political 
wisdom, the faculty of eloquence. Finally, we draw this sad conclu- 
sion, that history is little more than a dismal record of the crimes 
and the calamities of the human race !* 

* For a very copious and useful chronological table of the history of 
the Bible see Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, vol. II. This table is an 
epitome of the historyt>f the Jews, and will be particularly useful to 
theological students. 

y 



ELEMENTS 



GENERAL HISTORY, 



ANCIENT AND MODERN; 



BEING A CONTINUATOMt, 



TERMINATING AT THB 



DEMISE OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE I1L, l£t& 



BY THE REV. EDWARD NARES, D. D. 
Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. 



CONCORD, N. H. 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN F. BROWN. 

1837. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



As the learned author of the Elements of General History, pro- 
fessor Ty tier, (by courtesy lord Woodhouselee,) lived until the year 
1,813, it is much to be regretted that he did not bring his history 
down to a later period. 

In the present volume nothing further has been attempted than to 
continue the history from the point at which the professor left it, in 
the same concise style, and with as much attention to the original 
method and design, as could be rendered consistent with the extraor- 
dinary nature of the facts and incidents to be recorded. 

To this end it has been found necessary to carry on the history of 
Great Britain and Ireland from the period of the death of queen 
Anne; 

That of the Southern Continental States of Europe, from the end 
of the reign of Louis XIV ; 

And that of the Northern States from the death of Charles XII. 
of Sweden, and Peter the First of Russia 



PART THIRD. 
MODERN HISTORY. 



SECTION 1. 



FRANCE FROM THE DEATH OF LEWIS XIV. 1,715, TO THE 
PEACE OF VIENNA, 1,738. 

1. The last years of the very long and splendid reign of Lewis 
XIV. were clouded by many severe domestic misfortunes, and a 
great change in the sentiments and manners of the sovereign and hfe 
court. A mystical religion became the vogue, accompanied with a 
gravity of demeanour approaching to prudery. The amiable Fene- 
lon fell into these errors, which were countenanced by madame de 
Maintenon, who had been privately married to the king, and seems 
to have possessed his confidence in a high degree. 

2. On the king's demise (see Sect. LXIV.) the crown descended 
to his grandson, Lewis XV., an infant, only five years old. In a 
very short space of time, losses had occurred in the royal family, so 
strange and unexpected, as to afford ground for suspicion, greatly 
to the prejudice of the duke of Orleans, nephew of Lewis XIV. 
Three heirs to the crown, the Dauphin, his son the duke of Bur- 
gundy, and his grandson the duke of Bretagne, had all died within 
the short space of eleven months, during the years 1,711, 1,712, 
leaving, to intercept the claims and pretensions of the duke of Or- 
leans, only the duke of Berry and one infant, apparently of a feeble 
and delicate constitution, and whose own lite had also been in dan- 
ger. The king of Spain had been previously compelled, according 
to the spirit of the celebrated treaty of the Pyrenees, formally to 
renounce his claims to the succession, notwithstanding his near rela- 
tionship to the crown of France. Lastly, the duke of Berry died. 
May 1,714, at the early age of 18. 

3. Fortunately for the reputation of the duke of Orleans, (who, 
though of loose morals, seems to have possessed too generous a 
heart for such base deeds), the infant dauphin not only lived to be 
come king, but to survive the duke himself, many years. Nor were 
the suspicions which had been raised by the sudden deaths of so 
many heirs to the crown, strong enough to prevent the nation repos- 
ing the highest confidence in the duke, by suffering the kingly power 
to pass into his hands, as sole regent, during the minority ; though 
contrary to the express appointment of the late king, who is said 
to have wisely observed, when for form's sake he executed his will 
that it would have but little weight with the people, or the parlia 
ment, as soon as his eyes were closed. The nation willing'v accedeo 

Y2 33 



253 MODERN HISTORY. 

to the disposition of the parliament, in setting aside the claims of the 
illegitimate princes, whom the will of Lewis XIV. favoured; and 
the duke of Orleans was careful to fix that body in his interest, by 
promising to restore to it its full power of remonstrance, which had 
been greatly restrained during the preceding reign. 

4. Lewis XIV. had left his kingdom so incumbered with debt, and 
bo surrounded by mortified, jealous, and exasperated neighbours, 
eager to recover what had been taken from them during the trium- 
phant wars of that monarch, that it became an object of the highest 
importance to the regent, for the nation's sake, as well as his own, to 
maintain peace as far as he could with foreign states. To this end, 
though contrary to any former course of things, he prudently endea- 
voured to form alliances with the courts of St. James's and Vienna. 
In the former case the advantages were similar and mutual. By the 
treaty of Utrecht, England stood engaged to secure the French 
crown to the regent, in case Lewis XV. should die without issue ; 
and to keep her steady to this engagement, it was easy for the duke 
10 comply with the wishes of the whig government of England, in 
withholding all encouragement from the pretender. 

5. However pacific the views of the regent might be, Spain 
seemed to present an obstacle to the repose and tranquillity of Eu- 
rope, There a minister of a very different disposition had obtained 
the chief management of affairs, who appeared bent upon disturbing 
both the French and English governments, in order to recover what 
had been taken from Spain by the treaty of Utrecht, especially in 
Italy ; to deprive the duke of Orleans of the regency, in favour of 
the king his master, and to seat the pretender on the throne of Great 
Britain, with the aid of Russia and Sweden. Such were the plans oi 
the celebrated Mberoni ; originally the son of a gardener ; afterwards 
in the lowest stations in the church of Placentia, but who had raised 
himself, by an extraordinary display of genius and talent, to the high- 
est degree of credit and influence at the court of Philip V., with the 
exalted rank of cardinal. 

6. These movements indeed on the part of Spain, were not in 
themselves altogether unfavourable to the views of the regent ; in 
better securing to him the good will of England and Austria, always 
prepared to be jealous of too close an intimacy between the courts 
of Paris and Madrid. Some historians have even gone so far as to 
suppose it to have been a settled contrivance to impose on the former 
two courts, but certainly without sufficient grounds. 

7. It seems to have been a great oversight in the negotiations at 
Utrecht, not to have endeavoured more effectually to reconcile the 
courts of Austria and Spain. The former, after the treaty, remained 
jealous of the occupation of the Spanish throne by Philip ; while 
the latter could not fail to be aggrieved and offended at being made 
to contribute to the indemnification of Charles VI., by a very consid- 
erable dismemberment of its dominions, without any suitable or 
adequate remuneration. 

8. To counteract the projects of Alberoni, the regent entered into 
an alliance with England and the United States ; entirely sacrificing 
to the former the interests of the pretender, who was to be sent out 
of France. But the Spanish minister was not to be deterred by this 
triple alliance and confederacy against him, Having watched his op- 
portunity of a war between the emperor of Germany and the Porte, 
he suddenly commenced hostilities; and, with no small degree of 
treachery, in the course of the years 1,717 and 1,718, succeeded in 



MODERN HISTORY. 259 

wresting from Austria the island of Sardinia, and from the duke of 
Savoy that of Sicily, thus violating, in the most direct and glaring 
manner, the solemn treaty of Rastadt, so lately concluded. In con- 
sequence of these proceedings, and in order to remedy, as it would 
seem, the defects and omissions of the original convention, Austria 
was admitted a party to the alliance between France, England, and 
Holland, with a view to bring about a reconciliation between the 
emperor and Spain, upon the basis of the following arrangement : 
that the former should renounce all claims to the Spanish throne in 
favour of Philip, while the latter should surrender to the emperor the 
Netherlands, the duchy of Milan, and the kingdom of Naples, as- 
signed to him by the treaty of Utrecht and the quadruple alliance. 
That the duke of Savoy should yield Sicily to Austria, receiving in 
exchange the island of Sardinia from Spain ; and tr at the eldest son 
of Philip by his second marriage, don Carlos, should be secured in 
the reversion of the duchies of Parma and Placentia, and the grand 
duchy of Florence, to be holden as male fiefs under the emperor, 
and on no occasion whatever to be united to the crown of Spain. 

9. There never was a period perhaps in which it would have 
been more difficult to unravel the policy of these several courts. It 
was certainly a strange thing for the emperor to agree, in any man- 
ner, to admit the Spaniards into Italy, of which he had so much reason 
to be distrustful ; much more to assist in doing so. While those verv 
terms, which were undoubtedly introduced to gratify the Spanish 
minister, in this particular respect, so far from securing the ready 
consent of the court of Madrid, only induced it to make fresh efforts. 
The predominance of France and England, however, soon became 
so conspicuous, as to compel Philip to subscribe to the articles of the 
alliance, and even to dismiss his favourite minister, the cause of all 
the grievances of which the allied powers had to complain. In 
1,720 iVustria took possession of Sicily, and Victor Amadeus II. trans- 
ferred the seat of his government to the island of Sardinia. 

10. In the month of December, 1,723, in the 50th year of his age, 
the regent duke of Orleans died very suddenly in a lit of apoplexy. 
He was a prince of shining talents, and of great taste and spirit ; but 
dissolute in his habits of life to a most disgraceful pitch of extrava- 
gance. He did not indeed suffer his pleasures and licentious connex- 
ions to interfere greatly with the discharge of his public duties, but 
they tarnished his fame, and in all likelihood shortened his life. He 
had the misfortune in his youth to be put into the hands of a most 
unprincipled tutor, the Abbe Dubois, who continued with him to 
the last year of his life, dying only four months before him, a cardi- 
nal of Rome, and prime minister of France ! The elevation of this 
profligate man to such high stations in the church and state, did 
more mischief to the cause of religion and morality, than the person- 
al vices of the regent, who, amidst a thousand foibles, had some great 
and brilliant qualities. 

Neither Austria nor Spain were satisfied with what had been done 
for them, and strong remonstrances were prepared on the part of the 
dukes of Parma and Placentia, the grand duke of Tuscany, and the 
pope, against the grants in reversion to the Infant of Spain. At- 
tempts were made to reconcile the two courts more effectually by a 
congress, summoned to meet at Cambray, in the year 1,724, under 
the joint mediation of France and England, but ineffectually : in 
1,729 another, but more private attempt, had better success ; it was 
undertaken by a very singular and eccentric character, the baron, or 



260 MODERN HISTORY. 

duke, de Ripperda, Dutch minister at the court of Madrid, who suc- 
ceeded so far, through his own intrigues, and the venality of the im 
perial court, as to give umbrage to the governments of France and 
England ; the latter soon saw the necessity of guarding, by a coun- 
ter-treaty, framed at Hanover, against the eifects of Ripperda's in 
terposition. 

11. Secret articles were said to be signed and executed, to recov- 
er for Spain the fortress of Gibraltar and the island of Minorca, to 
seat the pretender on the throne of Great Britain, to forward the 
emperors views with regard to the Ostend East India Company, 
and to cement the alliance by marriages which would have kid a 
foundation for the reunion of the Austrian and Spanish dominions 
under one sovereign. Ripperda himself is said to have communicat- 
ed these secret articles to the English government : he was made to 
pay dear for his treachery. 

As the empress of Russia had acceded to the treaty of Vienna, 
concluded by Ripperda, and France and England had taken steps to 
secure Holland and Prussia on their side, Europe seemed to be 
threatened with another general war, but the timely death of the 
empress, in 1,727, and the defection of Prussia, gave a turn to affairs, 
and left room for the renewal of the congress of Uambray, transferred 
in the year 1,728, to Soissons, where fresh endeavours were made 
to establish a solid and permanent peace. As the emperor, however, 
insisted on the accession of all the contracting powers, to the Prag- 
matic Sanction, which was to secure to his heirs general the undi- 
vided succession to all his territories and dominions, the other courts 
withdrew; and in November, 1,729, concluded at Seville in Spain a 
separate treaty, in which it was agreed, between France, England, 
and Spain, to support the pretensions of the Infant to the duchies of 
Parma, Placentia, and Tuscany. To this treaty Holland was soon 
after brought to accede, on the condition that her rights should be 
protected against the new East India Company, established by the 
emperor at Ostend, which was considered as contrary to the treaty 
of Westphalia, and manifestly injurious both to England and the 
United States. The treaty of Seville was settled so totally without 
the concurrence of the emperor, that his name was not even men- 
tioned in it ; which, as might be reasonably expected, gave great 
offence. In the year 1,731, however, England, and in 1,732 Holland, 
acceded to the wishes of the emperor, in regard to the Pragmatic 
Sanction, on condition that the archduchess, who should succeed to 
the empire, should not marry any Bourbon, or other prince or po- 
tentate, capable of disturbing the peace of Europe. The Ostend 
Company was given up ; the Infant don Carlos took possession of the 
duchies of Parma and Placentia on the death of the last of the Far- 
nese family, and the grand duke of Tuscany acknowledged him as 
his heir. A treaty between England, Holland, and the empire, call- 
ed the second tioaty of Vienna, was signed and executed at the latter 
place, which may be said to have terminated all the differences aris- 
ing out of the Spanish succession, by which the greater part of Eu- 
rope had been kept in a state of agitation for the space of thirty 
years. 

While these things were in agitation, Victor Amadeus, embarrass. 
ed, as it is said, with the counter engagements he had entered into 
with Austria and Spain, thought fit to resign his crown to his son, 
Charles Emmanuel, but soon repenting of what he had done, pre- 
pared to reascend his abdicated throne ; this rash and injudicious steo 



MODERN HISTORY. £61 

was the cause of his imprisonment, and probably of his death, which 
Happened in November, 1,732. 

12. In 1,733, France became involved again in a war, both the 
origin and end of which had something remarkable in them. The 
throne of the elective kingdom of Poland becoming vacant by the 
demise of Augustas of Saxony, two competitors appeared on the 
stage ; the son of the deceased king, and Stanislaus Lescinsky, who 
had with great credit previously occupied it through the interposi- 
tion of Charles Xll. of Sweden," (see Sect. LXV1.) and whose daugh- 
ter was married to Lewis XV. The emperor of Germany, the 
Czarina, and the king of Prussia, espoused the cause of the former 
France supported the latter, and commenced hostilities against the 
emperor, by detaching the king of Sardinia from his interests, and 
occupying Lorrain, whose duke was engaged to marry the emperoi's 
daughter. But the principal seat of war was in Italy, where the 
French, Spanish, and Sardinian combined troops obtained many ad- 
vantages, and ultimately succeeded in seating don Carlos, duke of 
Parma, &c., on the throne of the Two Sicilies, to which he had been 
particularly invited by the Neapolitans. The Austrian court had 
been very supine, in not guarding better against the manifest de- 
signs of the queen of Spain, mother of don Carlos. He was crown- 
ed king by the title of Charles the third, July 3, 1,735. Naples 
was subdued in 1 ,734, and Sicily in the year following. During this 
contest, the celebrated prince Eugene, though then past seventy 
years of age, had the command of the imperial army on the Rhine ; 
Dut he had great cause to be offended with the situation in which he 
was placed ; the French being stronger ; England not to be roused 
to assist him, through the pacific views of the minister Walpole ; and 
having, both at court and in the army, many rivals and secret ene- 
mies. His only consolation was, the extreme and enthusiastic at- 
tachment of the soldiers, the very remembrance of which, as he 
feelingly acknowledges in his own memoirs, often afterwards drew 
tears from his eyes. 

13. Matters were brought to an accommodation, through the medi- 
ation of the maritime powers, (who, undoubtedly, appear in this 
case to have been guilty of misleading the emperor,) by a conven- 
tion signed at Vienna, in November, 1,738. By this treaty some 
very extraordinary appointments took place. Stanislaus, the depos- 
ed king of Poland, father-in-law to the king of France, obtained, 
keeping his kingly title, the duchies of Lorrain and Bar, to revert to 
France after his death, which did not take place till the year 1,766. 
In exchange for what was thus bestowed upon Stanislaus, the duke 
of Lorrain obtained the grand duchy of Tuscany, the reversion of 
which had been guaranteed to the Infant don Carlos, but who was, 
by the same treaty, acknowledged king of the Two Sicilies, surren- 
dering in his turn to the emperor, his two duchies of Parma and Pla- 
centia; Vigevano and Novaro were given to the king of Sardinia; 
and to the emperor, the Milanese, the Mantuan, and Parma. 

On the conclusion of the peace, France acceded to the Pragmatic 
Sanction. The kings of Spain and Sardinia showed some reluctance 
to agree to the terms of the treaty, but were induced to sign it in the 
course of the year 1,729. It is certainly verv remarkable, that, in 
eonsequence of a dispute about the crown of Poland, not only the 
emperor should have lost almost all his possessions in Italy, but 
France should have been able to recover a province of which she 
bad been deprived for the space of nearly a thousand years, and so 



262 MODERN HISTORY. 

situated as to render it one of the most splendid and gratifying acqui 
sitions she could possibly have contemplated. 



SECTION II. 

ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF THE HOUSE OF HAN- 
OVER, 1,714, TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE 
FIRST, 1,727. 

h Queen Anne was no sooner dead, [Part II. Sect. LXIV. § 20.] 
than steps were taken for the immediate acknowledgment of her suc- 
cessor, George Lewis, elector of Brunswick Luneburg, pursuant to 
the several acts of parliament, for securing the protestant succession, 
in exclusion of the pretender, the house of Savoy, and, in fact, every 
catholic branch of the royal family of England ; many of whom 
were more directly in the line of inheritance than the protestant 
descendants of James the first, in whom the crown was now vested ; 
not, however, without due regard to that hereditary line which may 
be said to have occupied the throne from the time of Egbert. The 
late union with Scotland, 1,706, [see as above] was calculated to sup- 
press any general desire, on the part of the people there, to place 
themselves again under a distinct sovereign. 

2. The accession of George I., to judge from the addresses of the 
two houses of parliament, and the general tranquillity manifested in 
all parts of the three kingdoms, at the time of his proclamation, 
would seem to have been acceptable to the nation at large Nor 
was the French king long before he openly acknowledged his right 
and title to the crown of Great Britain, though the sincerity of his 
declarations in favour of a protestant succession, and the exclusion 
of the aoi\3e of Stuart, was not too confidently relied upon. The 
states of Holland were, probably, entirely cordial, both in their ex- 
pressions of congratulation, and promises of support, according to 
existing engagements to that effect, as guarantees of the Hanoverian 
succession. From the king of Prussia, and various other princes and 
states of Germany, his majesty also received the strongest assuran- 
ces of support ; yet so little are these courtesies to be trusted, that 
it is more than probable, from circumstances since come to light, 
fhat at this very moment, with regard to the continental states in 
general, he had more enemies than friends. 

3. His entrance into his new. dominions, however, September, 
1,714, was hailed in a manner that could not fail to be extremely 
gratifying to the king, though it soon became manifest, and could not 
well have been otherwise, that there were many secret heart-burn- 
ings and disappointed hopes, to prevent that perfect unanimity which 
was most desirable on an occasion so important. The tories, some 
of whom had evidently been tampering with the pretender, during 
the last years of the queen's reign, were greatly discomfited, and 
in a very marked manner discountenanced by the king himself. The 
whigs enjoyed a triumph. The pretender's friends in general stood 
confounded, not only by the low estate of his cause, but by the per- 
plexity of their own feelings, with regard to his more direct heredi- 
tary claims to the crown. In this dilemma, it is not to be wondered 
that several should refuse to take the oaths of allegiance and abju- 
ration. Scotland also, in part at least, bewailed its lost independency 



MODERN HISTORY. 263 

by the act of union, which some were forward to have dissolved 
again ; and the papists, being very numerous in Ireland, rendered 
the peace of that kingdom constantly precarious. 

4. The persou, manners, and deportment of the new sovereign, 
were not such as immediately to conciliate his British subjects ; but 
he was by no means destitute of kingly virtues and accomplishments 
of a more solid and important description. Having delivered the 
ministerial government of the realm into the hands of the whigs, it was 
not long before serious proceedings were entered into, by the new 
administration, against the authors and advisers of the late peace and 
treaty of Utrecht ; and articles of impeachment for high treason ex- 
hibited against the earl of Oxford, viscount Bolingbroke, the duke of 
Ormond, earl of Strafford, and others. The duke of Ormond, and 
lord Bolingbroke, absconded ; the earl of Oxford, with greater mag- 
nanimity, stood upon his defence, and though imprisoned for a con- 
siderable time, was finally acquitted. Under a pretence of the 
church being in danger, which seems to have been adopted as a sort 
of watch-word by the tory party and Jacobites, (for so the adherents 
of the pretender were called,) riots and tumults took place in many 
parts of the kingdom ; in consequence of which, the king was em- 
powered by parliament (1,715,) to raise fresh forces, and the habeas 
corpus act was suspended, for the more speedy apprehension and de- 
tention of suspected persons. 

5. In Scotland, however, notwithstanding great precautions to the 
contrary, a rebellion actually broke out in the month of August, 
1,715, headed by the earl of Mar, late secretary of state for that 
kingdom ; and in September, the pretender's standard was erected 
at a place called Brae Mar, though the pretender himself did not ar- 
rive in Scotland till the December following ; before which time a 
severe action had taken place at Dunblain, between the contending 
armies, commanded on the side of the English by the duke of 
Argyle ; and on the side of the Scotch by the earl of Mar. The 
pretender, on reaching the shores of Scotland, was received with 
regal honours, and addresses were presented to him from many cor- 
porate bodies ; even his coronation was fixed to take place on the 
23d day of January. But during the course of these transactions, 
the chief officers of his army, as soon after appeared, were but too 
well convinced of their perfect inability to terminate the contest 
successfully, many things having fallen out to the disappointment of 
their hopes; particularly the death of Lewis XIV., who, notwith- 
standing his protestations in favour of the house of Hanover, had 
secretly favoured their cause. The English army, besides, since the 
battle of Dunblain, had been considerably reinforced, by Dutch as 
well as English troops. This being the case, as we learn from an ac- 
count given by the earl of Mar himself, they felt compelled to abandon 
their enterprise for the present; and in order to check the pursuit 
of the enemy, eager to seize the person of the pretender, they per- 
suaded the latter to leave the kingdom again, and return to France ; 
the earl of Mar himself accompanying him. They were followed, 
afterwards, by many leaders of the rebels, who, in a most extraordi- 
nary manner, escaped the English vessels stationed to intercept their 

Eassage ; but some of those, who had previously fallen into the 
ands of the English, as the earl of Derwentwater, and ethers, were 
impeached, and pleading guilty, executed. Many escaped by an act 
of grace. Thus was the rebellion, in a great measure, subdued i 
congratulatory addresses poured in upon the sovereign, and a day or 



264 MODERN HISTORY. 

public thanksgiving was appointed to be observed throughout the 
kingdom. 

6. The whigs, however, apprehending that their opponents, in a 
new parliament, might regain their ascendancy, and oe able to carry 
into execution their projects against the existing government, brought 
in a bill, (since called the septennial bill,) for enlarging the continu- 
ance of parliament, whereby the term was extended from three to 
seven years, unless sooner dissolved by the king, and to begin with 
the parliament then chosen and assembled ; a most important meas- 
ure, and accidentally originating with a party more friendly in repute 
to the rights and liberty of the people than the step itself would 
seem to imply. Abstracted from all temporary or party considera- 
tions, it may justly be regarded as a very delicate and important 
point in politics, to determine either a maximum or minimum, with 
regard to the duration of such elective assemblies as the English 
house of commons. Frequent elections being essentially necessary 
to preserve the people from any gross neglect of their interests by 
their representatives, or any unconstitutional encroachment on their 
liberty, as well as to remedy abuses ; but too frequent elections, hav- 
ing evidently the ill effect of keeping up party divisions, feuds, and 
animosities, interrupting business, and lessening the confidence of 
foreign states in the measures of government. Too frequent elec- 
tions, besides, by bringing independent candidates so much the 
oftener into a contest with the treasury, (for government must have, 
and will always endeavour to exert, a powerful influence,) may in 
time deter such persons from a conflict so disadvantageous; unless, 
in short, government influence in elections should be entirely done 
away, the more frequently they recur, the more they will harass 
and weaken private independence. (See Burke's works.) It was 
undoubtedly a bold step for any parliament, chosen under the popu 
lar triennial act of king William, to enlarge its own continuance ; nor 
was it ill urged by a member of the house of peers, as an argument 
against the bill, that, "if the existing house of commons continued 
themselves beyond the time for which they were chosen, they were 
no more the representatives of the people, but a house of their own 
making." The whigs, however, had this excuse, that the proposed 
measure was calculated to suppress a rebellion, or prevent the re- 
newal of one ; not raised, like other rebellions, under a pretence of 
liberty, but, in their eyes, clearly tending towards slavery, in the 
establishment of a catholic prince, and the destruction of the prot- 
estant interests, both in church and state. It was well that they as- 
signed any limit to their continuance, since a mere repeal of the 
triennial act would have left the term undefined. The bill was final- 
ly passed, after much opposition in the lower house, and a strong 
protest on the part of many lords in the upper, by a majority in the 
commons of 264 to 121 ; and it has continued the law of parliament 
ever since. 

7. In the year 1,717, an unpleasant dispute occurred, affecting the 
church, and which seems to have terminated the sittings of convo- 
cation. Dr. Hoadley, bishop of Bangor, gave occasion to it, by a 
sermon preached before the king, March 31, on "The Nature of 
the Kingdom of Christ," and by a publication entitled, " a Preserva- 
tive against the Principles and the Practices of the Non-jurors." 
The bishop had been a warm friend to the revolution, and many of 
the principles he asserted were undoubtedly directed rather against 
popery than our own establishment ; while, in opposition to the jure 



MODERN HISTORY. 265 

divtno pretence of the tories, he declaimed violently against every 
abuse of authority, at the hazard of impairing all church discipline, 
< ! rogating from the regal supremacy in "causes ecclesiastical," and 
annulling the force of all civil sanctions whatsoever in matters of 
religion ; on these grounds the convocation took the matter up, but 
without much effect. It was dissolved in the midst of the controver- 
sy, and has never sat to do business since. Those who chiefly at 
tacked the bishop in print, were Dr. Snape of Eton, dean Sherlock, 
Dr. Cannon, (who undertook to vindicate the proceedings of convo- 
cation,) Dr. Potter, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, and Mr. 
William Law. Perhaps no antagonist entered the lists, with more 
decorum of manners, or integrity of disposition, than the latter, who, 
in several letters addressed to the bishop, plainly proved that, how- 
ever innocent his intentions might be, his arguments and expressions 
plainly tended to the subversion of all church authority, and the en- 
couragement of a most fatal indifference to every particular form of 
worship and belief. Which, considering the high situation he held 
in the church, and the duties attached to that station, could not but 
appear in the light of an abandonment of those principles, which 
alone could have placed him there. Such, however, was the state 
of parties at the time, that the bishop was advanced to a higher post 
in the church, and some of the most forward of his opponents dis- 
missed from their employments about the court. 

I). In 1,718 George the first became a party to the celebrated 
quadruple alliance, formed to counteract the plans and projects of the 
Spanish minister Alberoni, (Sect. I. § 8.) who, while his views were 
chiefly directed towards his native country, Italy, managed to involve 
almost the whole of Europe in contests and jealousies, exceedingly 
perplexing, and inimical to the peace and tranquillity of many states. 
Distant as Sweden was, geographically, from the seat and object of 
his manoeuvres, yet, in order to prevent any interruption from Eng- 
land, he had nearly instigated the celebrated Charles XII. to invade 
the latter country, for the purpose of restoring the pretender to the 
throne of his ancestors. His agents and accomplices, however, 
were fortunately detected in time to prevent the rupture between 
the two courts. George I. was no favourite, either with the Swedish 
monarch, or his celebrated competitor, the czar of Muscovy. 

9. The chief object of the quadruple alliance, as has been before 
hinted, was to reconcile and adjust the rival claims and pretensions 
of the courts of Vienna and Madrid. Alberoni had endeavoured, 
during the war between the emperor and the Turks, to get posses- 
sion of Sardinia, Sicily, and other places, for the sons of the queen 
of Spain, a princess of Parma, his native country. He had proposed, 
in short, to recover for Spain all that had been conceded and surren- 
dered by the treaty of Utrecht. (Part II. Sect. LX1V.) The intei- 
ference of England, in sending a fleet to the Mediterranean, to sup- 
port the rights of the emperor, according to treaty, at the very mo 
merit when the Spanish forces were prepared to invade Sicily and 
the kingdom of Naples, exceedingly exasperated the cardinal min- 
ister, and induced him to heap reproaches on the British govern- 
ment for their precipitate proceedings, pretending that the Spaniards 
had in every instance manifested a favourable disposition towards 
England ; though nothing was more notorious than that her mer- 
chants had been scandalously ill-treated by them, and her minister 
at Madrid overwhelmed with complaints to that effect. The latter, 
indeed, stated afterwards in the house of commons, that he had pre- 
Z 34 



266 MODERN HISTORY. 

sented, at the least, five-and-twenty memorials to the court of Spain 
upon the subject, without redress"; and notwithstanding all these in- 
dignities, and to evince the desire of his government not too precipi- 
tately to commence hostilities, had communicated to the Spanish min- 
ister the numbers and force of the English fleet before it sailed, in 
order to convince him of its superiority, and deter him from the 
measures he had in view. The defeat of the Spanish fleet, off Sicily, 
by admiral Byng, August 1,718, ruined all the projects of Alberoni; 
he soon after fell into disgrace, and was precipitated from the exalted 
station he had attained to by the strength of his genius; which, what- 
ever his enemies might allege, certainly bespoke a keen and vigi- 
lant statesman, and an able minister, as far as regarded the interests 
of the country he served, both foreign and domestic. 

10. Though so severe an action had taken place in the Mediter- 
ranean, between the English and Spanish fleets in the month ol 
August, war was not formally declared at London till the close of 
the year 1,718, (Dec. 29 ? ) between which period and the final dis- 
grace and retirement of the Spanish minister, he had attempted 
two measures of deep revenge, one en the power and person of the 
duke of Orleans, regent of France, and the other on the govern- 
ment of George I. of England, by an invasion of his dominions in 
favour of the pretender, and under the direction of the expatriated 
duke of Ormond. It is remarkable that these projects were severally 
detected by the French regent and British monarch, in time to admit 
of their warning each other of the danger in which they were re- 
spectively placed, and of offering the assistance which the cases re- 
quired, 

11. The war so suddenly and unexpectedly excited between 
Great Britain and Spain, was in no long course of time brought to 
an issue very honourable and glorious to the former ; admiral Byng 
with his fleet in the Mediterranean, having so managed matters as 
fully to accomplish all the purposes of his mission, putting the em- 
peror into possession of Sicily, and the duke of Savoy of Sardinia, 
under circumstances of peculiar difficulty and embarrassment, owing 
to the obstinacy, backed by the bravery of the Spaniards, the hin- 
drances arising from a succession of governors at Naples, and the 
loss of time in the necessary communications with his own cour- 
and that of Vienna. No man, perhaps, ever discharged so delicate 
and arduous a commission, with more applause en the part of his 
own country and her allies, or with fewer complaints and less obloquy 
on the part of his opponents. The latter indeed, in this case, rather 
joined in the commendations so liberally bestowed on him by his em- 

Eloyers, at the termination of the short but vigorous contest. When 
e waited on the king at Hanover, his majesty is said, very justly, to 
have observed to him, that he had found out the secret of obliging 
his enemies as well as his friends; alluding to the very honourable 
terms in which the Spaniards had expressed themselves concerning 
him, both as an officer and negotiator. He was most deservedly ad- 
vanced to the peerage, by the title of viscount Torrington, and had 
other appropriate honours bestowed upon him. Towards the close 
of the year 1,719, the king of Spain acceded to the terms of the 
quadruple alliance; his minister, on the urgent and joint demands 
of the king of England, the emperor, and regent of France, having 
been previously dismissed, and banished the kingdom of Spain. 

12. In the course of the year 1,719, a bill was brought into par- 
'iament by the ministry, for limiting the number of the peers. It 



MODERN HISTORY. 267 

originated with Lord Sunderland, who is said to have had in view to 
restrain the power of the prince oi Wales, whom he had offended, 
when he should succeed to the throne. After much debate, and it is 
supposed almost entirely through the influence of Sir Robert Wal- 
pole, it was rejected by a large majority, 269 to 177. 

13. In 1,720 the king was much occupied in affording protection 
and support to the protestant interests abroad, and in endeavouring 
to restore peace and tranquillity amongst the northern states. Swe- 
den, Denmark, Prussia, and Poland, reaped the fruits of his media- 
tion ; but the czar resisted his proposals, and, for some time, contin- 
ued to act against Sweden, in defiance of the combined operations ot 
that country and England. He at last, however, consented to accept 
the mediation of France, and peace was established between Russia 
and Sweden, by the treaty of Nystadt, 1,721. 

14. Nothing occurred in this reign more disastrous in its conse- 
quences, or more sirange and extravagant in its origin and progress, 
than the celebrated South Sea scheme, whereby, though immense for- 
tunes were rapidly made by some, many individuals were ruined, 
and public credit alarmingly shaken. The details of this curious 
speculation and bubble (as it has been but too justly denominated,) 
it would be exceedingly uninteresting to enter into, in a work like 
the present, and they are easily to be found elsewhere ; but such an 
instance of public infatuation, illusion, and credulity, was only to be 
matched by the Mississippi scheme, projected by Law, during the 
regency in France, which had a similar effect, and which was most 
probably the model from which Sir John Blunt, the projector of the 
South Sea scheme, took the hint. The French system has been sup- 
posed to have had something more substantial in it, with respect to 
the exclusive trade to Louisiana. But the South Sea scheme had 
certainly commercial advantages attached to it. The two schemes, 
it must be admitted, supply the most useful lesson to all wise states, 
not to tamper with the public credit, or countenance such suspicious 
projects ; for though both these adventures set out with very plau- 
sible pretences of public benefit, and a certainty of relieving, rather 
than distressing, the credit of the nation, their course and progress 
soon became such as to excite the most lively apprehensions in all 
considerate minds, of the consequences which actually ensued ; es- 
pecially in England. 

15. The politics of Europe were in a very perplexed state, to- 
wards the close of the reign of George I., owing to two treaties, 
of which some account has been given in another place, but which 
were very important to the English nation. These were the trea- 
ties of Vienna and Hanover, the former of which took place in 
April, and the latter in September, 1,725. By the former, the em- 
peror and Spain were supposed secretly to have bound themselves 
to procure the restitution of Gibraltar and Port Mahon, to the latter 
power ; to aid the pretender, and to further the interests of the Os- 
tend East India Company, which had given umbrage to England, 
Holland, and France. By the latter treaty, England was able to 
secure on her side, against the projects oi' Austria and Spain, the 
kings of Prussia and Sweden, and the states of Holland ; but as this 
aid was very slowly and reluctantly promised, and, in one instance, 
soon abandoned, the state of affairs would have been very alarming, 
but for the encouragement given by parliament, which was so effec- 
tual, that though considerable preparations for war took place on the 
part of almost aU the nations concerned, articles of peace, through 



268 MODERN HISTORY. 

the mediation of France, were agreed upon in May, 1,727, and ao 
cepted by the imperial court and Spain j by these the charter of the 
Ostend company was suspended for a certain period, and the siege 
of Gibraltar, which had actually commenced, and been carried on 
for four months, raised and abandoned, 

16. George I. died at Osnaburgh, on his way to his electoral do 
minions, June 11, 1,727, with the reputation of an honest and generous 
prince. He was brave in the field, and wise in council ; having had 
many arduous negotiations on his hands, which he commonly con- 
ducted to a favourable issue ; not often, however, without large sub- 
sidies. His own measures were generally defensive and preventa- 
tive. He was fortunate in the state of things, at the period of Queen 
Anne's death, and in the removal of Lewis XIV., and Charles XII. of 
Sweden, both of whom were personally unfriendly to him, and cer- 
tainly had projects on foot for the restoration of the Stuart family. 
King George constantly manifested a disposition to govern according 
to the laws and constitution of the kingdom. And it has been observ- 
ed to his credit, that the nation not only improved in wealth and 
credit during his reign, but enjoyed a greater degree of tranquillity 
at home, and a longer duration of peace abroad, than during any 
period since the time of Queen Elizabeth. At the time of his death 
he was in the sixty-eighth year of his age. 



SECTION III. 

AUSTRIA (AND GERMANY) FROM THE PEACE OF RASTADT 
1,714, TO THE PEACE OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, 1,748. 

1. The affairs of Austria, as incidentally connected with those of 
France, Spain, England, Italy, and Prussia, from the year 1,713 to 
1,738, have been already treated of in the preceding sections. It 
may be necessary, however, to take a brief view of matters, from the 
commencement of the reign of Charles VI., to the death of that mon- 
arch ; which event, as we shall have to -show, greatly disturbed the 
whole of Europe, and occasioned the war which was terminated by 
the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1,748. 

2. Charles VI., who had borne a conspicuous part in the succession 
war, as a competitor for the Spanish throne, (Part II. Sect. LXIV.) 
became emperor in the year 1,711, on the demise of his elder 
brother, Joseph I. Though he had declined becoming a party to 
the treaty of Utrecht, in 1,713, it was not long before he perceived 
his error, being left alone to support an expensive war. In the fol- 
lowing year, therefore, he received the proposals made to him by 
the court of Versailles, consented to the opening of conferences, in 
the month of November, 1,713, and, in the March following, 1,714, 
signed the treaty of Rastadt, by which he obtained possession of the 
Spanish Netherlands, (except the barrier towns ceded to Holland,) 
Naples, Sardinia, Milan, Frieburg, and Kehl. 

3. But he was very soon disturbed in a part of these acquisitions, 
by the restlessness and jealousy of Spain, already noticed. Great de- 
signs were formed against his Italian territories ; Sardinia actually 
taken from him, in 1,717 ; Sicily, in 1,718, and further encroachments 
projected, but for the. timely interposition of the English, under 
admiral Byng, in the Mediterranean, (Sect. II. § 9, 11.) who soon 



MODERN HISTORY. 269 

brought matters to a favourable issue for Austria, with infinite credit 
to himself, both as an officer and a negotiator. 

4. Spain had eagerly caught at the opportunity which presented 
itself of making these attacks upon Austria, while the latter power 
was engaged in war with Turkey, in aid of the Venetians. The 
Turks, (instigated, it has been said, by the Spanish minister, to 
engage the attention of Austria,) in violation of the treaty of Car- 
lowitz, had taken the Morea from the Venetians, before Austria 
came to their aid, in the year 1,716; nor, though from that time 
so powerfully assisted, were they able to recover that peninsula. 
Charles VI., however, was not long at variance with the Porte upon 
this occasion. As early as the year 1,718, through the extraordinary 
skill and valour of prince Eugene, the Austrian commander, things 
were brought to an issue, and a peace concluded, through the me- 
diation of England and Holland, at Passarowitz, by which the Turks 
were allowed to retain the Morea, en ceding to the Venetians some 
frontier towns in Albania and Dalmatia, while Austria obtained Bel- 
grade, the Bannat of Temeswar ana Wallachia, as far as the Ahita^ 
she was also able to establish a free commerce in all the harbours of 
the Black Sea, and of the Danube, as well as with the Persians. The 
early termination of this war, together with the successes of the 
English on the shores of Sicily, checked the operations of the Span- 
iards, and disposed them to agree to the terms of the quadruple al- 
liance. Spain and Austria, however, were not effectually reconciled 
tiil the year 1,725, at which period the emperor was induced to re- 
nounce his pretensions upon Spain and the Indies. 

5. Charles VI. was for a long time deeply occupied in endeavour 
ing to preserve his own dominions from such difficulties as Spain had 
been involved in, at the beginning of this century, owing to the dis- 
puted succession to the Spanish throne, on the demise of Charles II. , 
and in which he had himself been so greatly concerned. He propos- 
ed, for this end, by a " Pragmatic Sanction," to make it a law, that 
if he should, at the time ot his death, have either sons or daugh- 
ters, the hereditary dominions and crowns belonging to the house of 
Austria, should remain united. In failure of such issue, male or fe- 
male, the daughters of his deceased brother, Joseph, were to succeed; 
and if they died without heirs, the inheritance was to pass to his sis- 
ters, and their descendants. When this act was proposed,- at the 
diet of Ratisbon, it was violently resisted by the electors of Saxony 
and Bavaria, as well as the elector Palatine, but by the treaty of Vien- 
na, 1,731, as well as by previous negotiations at the different courts ot 
Europe, almost every power, except France, was brought to consent 
to the proposed regulations; England and Holland, in particular, 
having been gained over by the emperor's agreement to suppress the 

ew East India Company which he had endeavoured to establish 
At Ostend. The guarantee of France was not obtained till six years 
after, in recompense of the transfer of the duchies of Lonaine and 
Bar to the latter power, on the demise of Stanislaus, king of Poland, 
who obtained the government of those countries by the treaty oi 
1.738. 

6. Charles VI. had scarcely succeeded in his great object oi the 
pragmatic sanction, before he was engaged in a fresh war with the 
Turks, in virtue of a treaty concluded with Russia, who had com- 
menced hostilities against the Porte, in 1,736. The war on the 

{>art of Austria, however, was of very short duration. She had 
ost the support ctf her famous general, prince Eugene ; and hei 
Z2 



270 MODERN HISTORY. 

armies, on the present occasion, appear to have been ill conducted. 
Jealousies and disagreements amongst the superior officers, and a 
great want of resources, baffled all their operations. In 1,739, the 
emperor was compelled to submit to the terms of the treaty of 
Belgrade, which was highly advantageous to Turkey. Austria 
surrendered Servia, with the fortresses of Belgrade and Szabatch ; 
and Austrian Wallachia, with the fortress of Orsova. By the treaty 
of Belgrade, the Porte also obtained advantages over Russia; but it 
is now known, that this convention was very artfully conducted by 
an agent of the French court, who was instructed not only to prevent 
the dismemberment of Turkey, by the combined forces of Austria 
and Russia, but to resist the aggrandizement of the former, and 
separate her, if possible, from her northern ally. 

7. In the year immediately following that in which the treaty of 
Belgrade had restored harmony between the two courts of Vienna 
and Constantinople, so much to the advantage of the latter, Charles 
VI. died, the last heir-male of the Austrian line of princes. Notwith- 
standing all the care he had taken to secure to his daughter the 
entire hereditary dominions of his family ; and though almost the 
whole of Europe had guaranteed the indivisibility of his dominions, 
according to his wishes, he was no sooner dead than numerous 
claims were set up, and a war kindled, which may be said to have, 
in its progress, involved every European state. The archduchess, 
Maria Theresa, consort of Francis, duke of Tuscany, according to 
the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction, (which, however, had been ill 
drawn up,) succeeded, on the death of her father, to the following 
kingdoms, states, and territories : Hungary and Bohemia, Silesia 
and Austrian Suabia, Upper and Lower Austria, Styria, Carinthia, 
Carniola, Burgau, Brisgau, the Low-Countries, Friuli, Tyrol, the 
Mantuan, and the Duchies of Milan, Parma, and Placentia. 

8. Unfortunately for the archduchess, Charles VI. had left his 
army in a bad condition, his finances embarrassed, ai:d, at the time 
of his death, a scarcity almost approaching to famine, prevailed in 
many parts of his dominions. All these circumstances combined, 
were calculated to raiso up competitors for different portions of his 
estates. Nor were they at all tardy in advancing their claims. The 
elector of Bavaria pretended to be the proper heir to the kingdom 
of Bohemia. Augustus II., elector of Saxony and king of Poland, 
having married the eldest daughter of Joseph 1., elder brother of 
Charles VI., claimed the whole Austrian succession. The king of 
Spain did the same, though upon a more remote title, and entirely 
through females. The king of Sardinia made pretensions to the 
duchy of Milan, and Frederic II., of Prussia, to the province of Sile- 
sia. 

9. Many of these several claimants had formally agreed to the 
terms of the pragmatic sanction, and even at first professed the most 
favourable dispositions towards the archduchess, who had taken quiet 
possession of all that had descended to her ; hut the times, and the 
peculiar circumstances of the empire, encouraged them to break 
through their engagements ; not, however, altogether without some 
pretence of honour and justice ; as was the case with France. The 
king of France had, as well as the kings of Poland and Spain, pre- 
tended to have derived a right from two princesses, married to Lew 
is XIII. and XIV., to the whole succession ; but choosing, rather than 
to depend upon these titles, to take the part of the elector of Bava- 
ria, he insisted that, in his guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction, by the 



MODERN HISTORY. 2*1 

clause u sine prcejudicio tertii" he was fairly left at liberty to espouse 
any claims that should appear to him more just than those of the 
archduchess, queen of Hungary. This clause had, indeed, been in- 
troduced into some of the acts of guarantee, though not into all. 

10. The most forward and active of the queen's opponents was a 
prince little known till then, Frederic king of Prussia, at that time 
about twenty-eight years of age. He had succeeded, through the 
prudence of his father, to an army and a treasury of no inconsider- 
able importance ; both of which he had himself also found time to 
improve. His movements were sudden, and quite unexpected by 
ihe court of Vienna ; and he soon made known what his demands 
were, proposing that if they should be granted, he would support 
Austria against other enemies, and assist the queen in placing her 
husband on the imperial throne. He pretended, indeed, at first, to 
be only desirous of occupying Silesia, as a friend to the queen ; but 
the mask was soon laid aside, and his fixed determination to become 
master of Lower Silesia rendered visible to all the world. 

1 1 . The queen would consent to the surrender of no part of her 
inheritance, though possibly her refusal in this instance, occasioned 
the alliance soon afterwards formed between the court of Versailles 
and Frederic, from which she suffered so much. England, it is said, 
counselled submission in the point of Silesia, foreseeing the conse- 
quences ; but worse consequences, perhaps, were to be apprehend- 
ed, had she complied. It would, in all likelihood, have disposed 
others to urge their claims with greater importunity. 

1 2. Aided by France and Saxony, the elector of Bavaria, towards 
the middle of the year 1,741, acquired possession of the kingdom of 
Bohemia, and was proclaimed king, and inaugurated with great 
solemnity; and, on the 12th of February, 1,742, he had the imperial 
dignity conferred on him by the diet of Frankfort, under the title of 
Charles VII., having been chosen, however, when some of the elec- 
tors were disqualified from voting. 

13 Never was there a greater prospect of a total dismemberment 
of the Austrian dominions than at this time. Different parts were 
regularly assigned to the several claimants, and nothing left for the 
daughter of Charles VI. but the kingdom of Hungary, the province 
of Lower Austria, the Belgian states, and the duchies of Carinthia, 
Styria, and Carniola. Precautions had even been taken to prevent 
her deriving any aid from Russia, by exciting Sweden to declare was 
against the latter power. But the spirit of this surprising woman 
was not to be broken by the powerful combination against her. She 
had, at the very commencement of her reign, in a singular and ex- 
traordinary manner, and with consummate wisdom, particularly by 
taking the ancient oath of king Andrew II., attached to her interests 
the brave Hungarians. Repairing to them with her infant son, she 
threw herself entire-iy upon their protection, and, in the most public 
manner, addressing them in the Latin language, at a special assembly 
of the states, presented her child to them in terms the most pathetic. 
Supported by their valour, and with the help of English and Dutch 
money, she baffled all her enemies, and finally dissipated the stoma 
that so rudely threatened her. It was not, indeed, until Walpole was 
removed from the English ministry that the queen received any ac- 
tive assistance from the king of England ; but afterwards, both in 
Flanders and Italy, he was a powerful ally. She also derived some 
succours from the king of Sardinia, not, however, very creditably 
purchased with regard to Genoa. 



272 MODERN HISTORY. 

14. Had the numerous powers first armed against Maria Theresa, 
or intimidated into a state of neutrality, agreed amongst themselves, 
it would have been impossible for the queen to have withstood their 
attacks ; but, fortunately for her, many stood so directly in a state of 
livalship towards each other, and France was such an object of sus- 
picion and alarm to almost all the other confederates, that their very 
ftrst movements produced jealousies and divisions amongst thorn ; 
and, what is very remarkable, the earliest who showed a disposition 
to treat with the queen was the king of Prussia, in consequence of 
the successes of the elector of Bavaria in Bohemia. 

15. The interference of England, in behalf of the queen, did at 
first, indeed, only exasperate France, and the other allies of Charles 
VII., and excite them to a more vigorous opposition. But the death 
of the emperor, in the year 1,745, who had derived no happiness, 
but, indeed, a great deal of misery, from his short exaltation, and his 
son's prudent and wise abandonment of such high dignities, in order 
to secure his quiet possession of his paternal dominions, left the 
queen at liberty to procure for her husband, Francis, grand duke of 
Tuscany, the imperial crown ; his election to which took place in 
the month of September of the same year ; the queen agreeing to 
admit the young elector of Bavaria to the full possession of his he- 
reditary dominions, and to acknowledge his father, Charles VII., to 
have been duly invested with the imperial dignity. After some 
signal successes, the queen's great adversary, the king of Frussia, 
also came into her terms, having agreed, in a treaty concluded at 
Dresden, to acknowledge the validity of Francis's election, on being 
put in possession of Silesia and the county of Glatz, the chief objects 
for which he had been contending. The elector Palatine was like- 
wise included in this treaty. 

16. The French continued the war in the Netherlands, as well 
as in Italy, and with considerable success ; but the queen being a 
good deal disembarrassed by the peace she had been able to con- 
clude with Prussia, had it soon in her power to recover all that 
the French and Spaniards had acquired in Italy, while the French 
conquests in Flanders and Holland led to the re-establishment of 
the stadtholdership, and thereby baffled all their hopes of future 
advantages in those parts. The interference of the empress of 
Ptussia, subsidized by England, and, above all, the peculiar situation 
of the king of France, whose finances were almost exhausted, and 
who had suffered severe losses by sea, tended to bring matters to an 
issue. A congress was opened at Aix-la-Chapelle, which, though 
father slow in its operations, at last terminated in a peace, concluded 
October 7, 1,748, exactly a hundred years after the famous treaty 
of Westphalia, which served for a basis of the negotiations entered into 
upon this occasion. By this convention, as in most other instances of 
the same nature, there was so general a restitution of conquests, as 
plainly to mark the folly and injustice of having continued the war 
so long. During this contest, in the year 1,743, died the cardinal de 
Flenry, first minister of France, at the very advanced age of ninety. 
He did not assume the reins of government till he was seventy- 
three. He had many virtues, but was much more admired by his 
countrymen for his integrity and disinterestedness, than for energy 
of character, or public spirit. 

17. The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle bringing us, as nearly as can be, 
to the middle of the eighteenth century, it may be well to take a 



MODERN HISTORY. 273 

view of Europe at this particular period, and as connected with 
this celebrated treaty ; but this must be reserved for a future section. 



SECTION IV. 

ENGLAND FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE II. TO THE 
THRONE, 1,727, TO HIS DEATH, 1,760. 

1. The accession of George II., who came to the throne 1,727, in 
the 44th year of his age, and in a time of profound peace, was not at- 
tended with such changes as many had expected. Even the minis- 
ter himself, sir Robert Walpole, is said to have been surprised at the 
reception he met with from his majesty, on the demise of the late 
king, and at the continuance of the power in his hands. But this is 
now known to have been owing to the wise and prudent care of 
queen Caroline, who, at this moment, was found to possess an influ- 
ence over her royal consort, which had been by many little suspect- 
ed, but which her extreme good sense, and discreet conduct, seemed 
fully to justify. The whigs might justly be considered as the truest 
friends of the house of Hanover and the protestant church ; and 
their continuance in power at the commencement of a new reign, 
though very grating to the adverse party, seemed to be extremely 
favourable to the quiet of the nation. 

2. The good-will which had sprung up, and been encouraged dur- 
ing the regency, between the rival courts of Versailles and London, 
was not materially disturbed during the whole administration of 
Walpole, and his pacific contemporary, cardinal Fleury ; the queen 
being also friendly to peace. But as it is not easy for any peaceable 
government long to escape the encroachments of other states, Spain, 
apparently presuming on the forbearance ( or apathy of the British 
ministry, committed great depredations, for a series of years, upon 
the trade of England with America and the West-Indies, committing 
many acts of most atrocious cruelty, in addition to their other deeds 
of insult and plunder. Some steps were at length taken to remedy 
these evils, but the conduct of Spain was so generally resented by 
the nation, as to render even the convention, by which the disputes 
were referred to arbitration, extremely unpopular. It being thought, 
by many of all descriptions, not only that the grievances complained 
of had been too long submitted to and endured, and the measures 
hitherto taken to redress them been too tame and submissive, but 
that nothing less than a war could restore 'lie lost consequence of 
the state, or bring such offenders to reason. 

3. The Spaniards, indeed, had defended their conduct in many 
memorials, pretending that the English were the aggressors, in car- 
rying on a contraband and unlawful trade with their colonies ; but 
had this been capable of proof to the extent the Spaniards pretend* 
ed, which was certainly not the case, there is no doubt but that they 
suffered themselves to be hurried into most unjustifiable excesses in 
their measures of reprisal, and exceedingly ill-treated both the mer- 
chants and sailors of England. They insisted upon a general right 
of search, on the open seas, and condemned the ships and cargoes, 
upon such frivolous pretences as could not fail to be extremely in- 
iurious and oppressive, and quite contrary to existing treaties. In 
one instance, a whole fleet of English merchant-ships, at the island of 

3* 



A 



4 274 MODERN HISTORY. 

Tortugas, was attacked by Spaniards, as ii the two nations had been 
at open war 

4. It would be scarcely possible, perhaps, to justify entirely the 
extraordinary forbearance of the British government, for nearly 
twenty years, during which not only these indignities had been con- 
tinually repeated, but express engagements, and promises to redress 
and abstain from such aggressions in future, notoriously violated. 
This had been remarkably the case with respect to the stipulations 
of the treaty of Seville, concluded in the year 1,729. There were 
very warm debates in parliament on the subject, and the ministry 
were hard pressed to defend themselves from the charge of supine- 
ness, gross indifference to the sufferings of the merchants, and the 
honour of the crown, and, in some instances, even of criminal conniv- 
ance. And, indeed, their opponents obtained, at length, this triumph 
over them, that the very convention which was to be the prelimina- 
ry of a perfect adjustment of differences, and a surety for the indem- 
nification of the merchants for all their losses, was, like every pre- 
ceding treaty and compact, disregarded by Spain, and war obliged 
to be declared before the year was out, to compel her to more 
just and equitable measures. The war, however, was not so success- 
ful as to render it clear that the pacific and wary proceedings of the 
British minister were otherwise than most prudent and wise, consid- 
ering the general circumstances of Europe. " Omnia prius expe- 
nd verbis quam armis sapientem decet," is a maxim which has 
been applied to the conduct of sir Robert Walpole, by an author, 
not backward to admit that, on some points, in regard to continental 
politics, the pacific system was carried too far. The period during 
which it prevailed will, certainly, for ever be a remarkable era in 
English history, especially as the reigning sovereign was notorious 
ly a soldier, and by no means personally disposed to adopt so inactive 
a line of conduct. 

5. Though the people had been clamorous for the war with 
Spain, they were soon dissatisfied with the conduct of it, and that to 
so great a degree, as to compel the minister, sir Robert Walpole, 
though with considerable reluctance, to resign his appointments ; 
which took place in February, 1,742; the approbation of his sove- 
reign being manifested in his elevation to the peerage, by the title of 
earl of Oxford. He was succeeded by lord Carteret. Sir Robert 
Walpole had been an able, intelligent, and prudent minister ; a con- 
stant lover of peace, in the w T ay of defence and prevention ; and 
upon this he prided himself : he was of the whig party, which ex- 
posed him much to the rancour, not only of those whose political 
opinions were different, but of many disappointed persons who 
thought with him. By these he was stigmatized as having reduced 
corruption to a system ; but by others, this charge was as confidently 
repelled ; nor would it be difficult to prove that, though he often spoke 
as if he knew every man's price, he governed, not by corruption, 
but by party attachments, as his friends and admirers have alleged. 
Upon two great occasions his plans were thwarted by some who 
lived to see and correct their errors, as was the case, particularly, 
Tfith Mr. Pitt, in regard to the excise bill, first proposed to the house 
of commons in the year 1,732. There was never, perhaps, a case 
ir which party, faction, and ignorance prevailed more over truth, 
and justice, and prudence. The bill was calculated to check ana 
control the most gross and pernicious frauds upon the revenues ; to 
favour and encourage, in every possible manner, the fair dealer. 



MODERN HISTORY. 275 

(and through him the public in general,) and by the savings pro- 
duced in the treasury, materially to lighten the public burthens: yet 
i h a clamour was raised against the measure, from its first sugges- 
tion, as to oblige the minister to abandon it. 

6? The other measure, which brought great odium on this able 
minister of finance, was his trespass on the sinking fund, first estab- 
lished in 1,727, and which he made no scruple to alienate for public 
purposes, as occasion seemed to require. The very name of this 
fund is not equally applicable to all times. At first it arose entirely 
from savings, and its perpetual or uninterrupted operation under such 
circumstances, would appear to have been an indispensable part ot 
its character. It had been calculated as proceeding upon the basis 
of compound interest ; while new loans and debts, contracted lor 
pressing emergencies, were held to burthen the public in the way 
of simple interest* only. But in these days, the whole state ot the 
question is changed. The modern sinking fund is not a sinking fund 
of surpluses or savings, but in itself a borrowed fund ; of great power 
and great utility, occasionally, but plainly at the command of the 
public, whenever the current expenses cannot be provided for at a 
less cost ; and, indeed, often beneficially to be applied to such pur- 

Eoses, in greater or less proportions, to the avoidance of many 
eavy charges of management, high premiums, and new taxes. The 
alienation of the original sinking fund, by sir Robert Walpoie, how 
ever, has been verv ably defended since, though opposed and resist- 
ed, at the time, with a virulence and animosity exceedingly distress- 
ing to that minister. 

7. The new administration, which came into power on the resig 
nation of Walpoie, so little answered the expectations ot their 
friends, deviated so soon from the principles they had avowed, while 
in opposition, and seemed so much more disposed to espouse the 
cause of Hanover, at the expense, and to the loss, of England, in 
useless subsidies and foreign wars, than to attend to the domestic 
difficulties under which she was supposed to be labouring, that they 
became, in a very short time, quite as unpopular as their predeces- 
sors, and in 1,745, the very year in which Walpoie died, the rebel- 
lion broke out in Scotland. 

8. This attempt against the house of Hanover, undertaken by the 
heir of the Stuart family, in person, was, undoubtedly, an ill-con- 
ducted, as it was ultimately an unsuccessful, enterprise ; though to 
call it altogether a weak one, would be contrary to historical truth. 
Its commencement, indeed, had all the appearance of the most ro- 
mantic infatuation, but in its progress it became so formidable, as 
even to threaten the capital of England, and the protestant succes- 
tion ; nor was it subdued without great efforts and exertions on the 
part of the king's forces, so unavailing and disheartening at first, as 
to render the issue of the contest extremely problematical. It was, 
in fact, at the beginning, despised and neglected, by the lords of the 
regency, in the absence of the king, who was then at Hanover, so 
that time was given for such an accession of friends and adherents t-o 
the cause of the pretender, while the English army was left without 
any adequate reinforcements, that the rebels not only got possession 
of Edinburgh, after a very severe but most successful action with 
the English, at Preston Pans, but were able to march, unmolested, 
far int) England, and even to retreat, in the face of a powerful army, 
under circumstances peculiarly creditable to the prowess, humanity, 
ttud military skill of the Scottish commander. 



276 MODERN HISTORY. 

9. Had the young prince met with the encouragement he expect- 
ed on his march to the south, he might have possessed himself of the 
English, as he had done of the Scotch, capital ; but his hopes of aid 
were, considering all things, strangely and cruelly disappointed. 
Not a soul joined him, of any importance, though he had advanced 
nearly to the very centre of the kingdom ; while the French failed 
to fulfil their engagement of invading the southern parts of the 
island, in order to divide and occupy the English army, so that his 
retreat became a point of prudence perfectly inevitable, however 
mortifying and grating to the gallant spirit of Charles, who un- 
doubtedly manifested a strong disposition to proceed against all obsta^ 
cles. 

10. The conflict between the two nations, on this occasion, was 
greatly affected by the religious tenets and principles of the oppos- 
ing parties. Had Scotland been entirely catholic, the hopes of the 
Stuart family would have been extremely reasonable ; but it was. 
at this period, divided between the presbyterians and the catholics ; 
the Lowlanders being of the former sect, and the Highlanders, gen- 
erally speaking, of the latter. The presbyterians, who had gained 
peat advantages, in the way of toleration, by the revolution, having 
become whigs in principle, naturally adhered to the house of Han- 
over, while the catholic Highlanders were quite as fully and as nat- 
urally inclined to support their native prince. Nothing could be 
wiser, perhaps, under these circumstances, than the sending a prince 
of the blood to command the British forces, and, as it happened, no 
officer of the British army could be more popular than the duke of 
Cumberland, at this very period. His royal highness joined the 
army at Edinburgh, not long after the battle of Falkirk, in which 
the English, under general Hawley, had recently sustained a check. 
The duke, indeed, had been expressly recalled from Flanders, to 
suppress the rebellion, which was, in no small degree, detrimental 
and injurious to the cause of the allies. 

11. The conduct of the son of the pretender was certainly that 
of a brave but inconsiderate young man. Sanguine in his expecta- 
tions beyond what any circumstances of the case would completely 
justify, he, in more instances than one, committed himself too tar, and 
at the very last exposed himself to a defeat, which might, at least, 
have been suspended or mitigated, if not totally avoided. He made 
a stand against the king's forces at Culloden, while his troops were 
in a bad condition for righting, and when it would obviously have 
been better policy to have acted on the defensive ; to have retired 
before his adversary, till he had led him Ltito the more impractica 
ble parts of the highlands, where all his military means would 
have been crippled, and a retreat, perhaps, at least, have been 
rendered indispensably necessary ; but by risking the battle of Cullo- 
den, (April 16, 1,746) he lost every thing. The duke of Cumber- 
land gained a must decisive victory ; and so completely subdued the 
hopes and spirits of his young opponent, that he never afterwards 
joined his friends, though solicited, and indeed engaged, so to do ; but 
wandering about the country for a considerable time, with a price of 
£30,000 set on his head, after enduring incredible hardships and 
difficulties, embarked for France ; and thus terminated for ever the 
struggles of that exiled and deposed family to recover its ancient 
dominions. The very remarkable instances of attachment, fidelity, 
and pure hospitality, by which, after the battle of Culloden, the 
unfortunate fugitive was preserved from the hands of his pursuers, 



MODERN HISTORY. 277 

surpass any thing of the kind recorded in history, and reflect indelible 
credit on the high and disinterested feelings and principles of those 
who assisted him in his escape. 

12. The most melancholy circumstance attending this rash un- 
dertaking, was the necessity that arose for making examples of those 
who had abetted it, in order more securely to fix on the throne of 
Great Britain the reigning family ; who, having acquired that right 
in the most constitutional manner, could not be dispossessed of it, but 
by an unpardonable violation of the law. Of the excesses committed 
by the English troops after the battle of Culloden, it is to be hoped, 
as indeed it has been asserted, that the accounts are exaggerated: 
but in the common course of justice, many persons, and some of the 
highest rank, underwent the sentence of death for high treason, 
whose crime, through a melancholy infatuation, must in their own 
eyes have appeared the very reverse, and whose loyalty and attach- 
ment, under different circumstances, and with the law and constitution 
on their side, would have deserved the highest praise. Though 
many of the adherents of the pretender suffered, many of them 
made their escape beyond sea, and arrived safely at the different 
poitsof the continent. No attempts have since been made by any of 
the catholic descendants of the royal family of Great Britain to dis- 
turb the protestant succession in the house of Brunswick. 

13. This illustrious house sustained a very unexpected and mel- 
ancholy loss, in the year 1,750, by the death of his royal highness 
the prince of Wales, father of his late majesty ; who, in consequence 
of a cold caught in his gardens at Kew, died of a pleuritic disorder, 
on the twentieth day of March, in the forty-fifth year of his age. 
He was a prince endowed with many amiable qualities ; a munificent 
patron of the ails, a friend to merit, and sincerely attached to the in- 
terests of Great Britain. 

14 In the coarse of the year 1,751, a remarkable act was passed 
in parliament, for correcting the calendar, according to the Gregori- 
an computation. It was enacted, that the new year should begin 
on the first of January, and that eleven days between the second and 
fourteenth days of September, 1,752, should for that time be omitted, 
so that the day succeeding the second, should be called the fourteenth 
of that month. This change was on many accounts exceedingly im- 
portant, but to persons wholly unacquainted with astronomy, it ap- 
peared a strangely arbitrary interference with the currency and set* 
tied distinctions of time. 

15. Though the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1,748, may be said 
to have restored peace to Europe, the English and French came to 
no good understanding with regard to their remote settlements. 
The war in those parts involved the interests of the natives or set- 
tlers, as well as of the two courts, and scarcely seems to have fallen 
under the consideration of the negotiating ministers. In the east and 
in the west many disputes and jealousies were raised, which though 
referred to special commissioners to adjust, in no long course of time 
involved both countries in a fresh war, the particulars of which will 
be found elsewhere : a war which extended to all parts of the globe, 
and continued beyond the reign of George II., who died suddenly 
at Kensington, in 1,760, in the 77th year of his age, and 34th of his 
reign. 

16. George 11. was a prince of high integrity, honour, and vera- 
city, but of a warm and irritable temper, of a warlike disposition, 
and though for a long time restrained by his pacific minister, sir 

Aa 



278 MODERN HISTORY. 

Robert Walpole, from taking any active part in the disputes of the 
continent, yet constantly inclined to do so, from an attachment, very 
natural, though unpopular amongst his British subjects, to his Ger- 
man dominions. He was greatly under the influence of his queen, 
while she lived, " whose mild, prudent and conciliating manners," 
to use the words of a very impartial and judicious biographer, 
" were more congenial to the character of the English nation." 
Queen Caroline had indeed many great and splendid virtues ; though 
of most amiable and domestic habits, she was well versed in the 
politics of Europe, an,d had considerable literary attainments, which 
disposed her to be a iriend to learned persons, particularly to many 
members of the church, of which several striking and remarkable 
instances have been recorded. It is sufficient to mention the names 
of Herring, Clarke, Hoadley, Butler Sherlock, Hare, Seeker, and 
Pearce. She was the daughter of John Frederick, margrave of 
Brandenburgh Anspach, and was born in the year 1,683. She was 
married to his majesty in 1,705, and had issue two sons and five 
daughters. Her death, which occassioned great grief to her royal 
consort and family, took place on the 20th of November, 1,733, 
when she was in the 55th year of her age. 



SECTION V. 

STATE OF EUROPE AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE PEACE 
OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, 1,748, 

1 . By the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle the house of Hanover was 
effectually established on the throne of Great Britain, to the entire 
exclusion of the Stuart family. Though the peace was not popular 
in England, and she was supposed by many to have made too great, 
and in some instances ignominious concessions, yet it was certainly 
fortunate for her that the continental powers confined their views to a 
balance which did not extend to the sea ; and thereby left in her 
hands a force, beyond calculation superior to that of the other 
countries of Europe, and amounting almost to a monopoly of com- 
merce, credit, and wealth, so as to render her, as it were, the chief 
agent or principal, in all political movements, for the time to come. 
Her prosperity, indeed, had been on the increase, in no common de 
gree, from the accession of the Brunswick family. 

2. Austria lost, by the treaty of 1,748, Silesia and Glatz, the 
duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla, and some places in 
the Milanese : but she succeeded, and chiefly at the expense of her 
allies, in the article of the. succession. All former treaties were 
formally recognised, which involved indeed other losses to the em- 
pire, if compared with the time of Charles V r ; but the dominions 
of the latter were certainly too extensive, and too detached, to form 
a great and stable empire. This, indeed, may be said to have been 
the case with regard even to the reduced domains of Charles VI.; 
but his high-spirited daughter, Maria Theresa, was to the last indig- 
nant at the losses she had sustained. She corrected the error into 
which she had fallen with regard to Genoa, and which occasioned 
great commotions there, by consenting to let the marquisate of Final 
revert to that republic, whbh had been very arbitrarily given, in 
the course of the war, as a bribe to the king of Sardinia, and made 
a free port, to the evident disadvantage of the Genoese, who had 



MODERN HISTORY. 279 

originally purchased it for a valuable consideration, under the guar- 
antee of Great Britain. 

3. Prussia gained, by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Silesia, and 
the county of Glatz, which were guaranteed to her by all the con- 
tracting powers ; and by this accession of territory she was raised 
into the condition of a power capable of entering into the field ol 
action, as a rival of Austria ; which might have been foseseen, when 
Leopold erected it into a kingdom, for the express purpose of coun- 
terbalancing the power of France. As it was, the unity of the em- 
pire seemed to be dissolved, and a door set open to future revolutions 
in the Germanic body. The character and subsequent achievements 
of Frederick II. contributed greatly to the aggrandizement of his do- 
minions. He was active, bold, fond of glory, and indefatigable. He 
was brave in the field, and wise in the cabinet. Desirous of shining 
in all that he undertook, he was indefatigable in keeping his army 
constantly ready for all emergencies, and in repairing the damages to 
which his dominions had been subjected by his ambition. He drew 
to him many eminent persons of all countries, of whose society he 
pretended to be fond ; but he oftentimes showed himself to be a 
most merciless tyrant, a blunderer in political economy, and, if not 
quite an atheist, very lax in his principles of religion. 

4. Holland lost much by the peace, and gained nothing. Some, 
indeed, doubted whether she did not greatly endanger her indepen 
dence, by consenting to make the stadtholdership hereditary in the 
house of Orange, and that in favour of the female as well as male 
heirs of the family: but others conceived that this approach to mo- 
narchical government greatly strengthened the republic ; and it would 
indeed seem that it had declined much in power and consequence, 
from the very period when that office was abolished, in the preced- 
ing century. One precaution was adopted with regard to the female 
heirs to the Stadtholdership : they were precluded from marrying any 
king, or elector of the empire ; a precaution which there were, in 
the history of Europe, sufficient reasons to justify. 

5. Spain obtained, for two branches of her royal family, the king- 
dom of Naples, and the duchies of Parma, Placentia, and Ouastalla: 
the latter to revert to Austria, that is, Parma and Guastalla, and Pla- 
centia to Sardinia, should the new duke, don Philip, die without issue, 
or succeed to either of the kingdoms of Spain or Naples. But the 
power of Spain was not much increased, either by land or sea. On 
the latter, indeed, the English had an overwhelming superiority; 
and, on land, though her armies were brave, they were generally ill 
conducted, and her government too bad to render her respectable 
in the eyes of Europe. Ferdinand VI., indeed, the successor of 
Philip, who came to the throne just before the conclusion of the 
treaty, applied himself, with no small degree of credit, to retrieve 
the character of the nation. 

6. Austria, by seeking an alliance with Russia, had introduced the 
latter power into the southern states of Europe, and given her consid 
erable weight and consequence, as a counterbalance to her grea* 
rival, France. Scarcely known at the commencement of the century, 
the movement impressed upon this mighty empire by the extraor- 
dinary genius and vigour of Peter the first, had carried her forward, 
with a rapid progression ; so that, by the middle of the century, she 
might justly be regarded as amongst the most considerable powers oi 
Europe. Her armies were, perhaps, more than semi-barbarous; but 
they were brave, indefatigable, hardy, and supported by the reli- 



2») MODERN HISTORY. 

gious principle of predestination; the foundation of a dViperate 
kind of hardihood, seldom to be resisted. Her internal resources 
were not at all considerable, but they were daily improving. When 
Peter the first came to the crown, her revenues amounted to six 
millions of roubles; in 1,748 they were nearly quadrupled. Thus 
rapidly advancing, with one arm reaching to the Baltic, and the 
other to the Black sea, it was very obvious to discern that when, by 
good management, her gigantic body should be duly invigorate \ 
she had every chance of becoming a most formiflable power 
Already had she shown herself such, to a great degree, in the influ 
ence she had acquired in Sweden, Denmark, and Poland ; in he 
commercial treaties with England, her alliance with Austria, and hei 
wars with the Turks. Her resources and means of improvement 
were great ; rivers not only navigable during the summer, but during 
the winter also, affording, by means of sledges, every opportunity 
of a quick and easy transport of all sorts of commercial goods ; the 
greater part of her southern provinces fertile, and requiring little 
culture ; mines of gold, iron, and copper ; great quantities of timber, 
pitch, tar, and hemp. She had not yet learned to manufacture her 
own productions, or to export them in her own ships, and conse- 
quently to make the most of them : but she was in the way to learn 
such arts, and when once attained, she had the fairest prospects of 
acquiring a decided superiority, not only in the Baltic, and White 
sea, but on the Black sea and Caspian. 

7. Turkey, at the middle of the eighteenth century, was compar- 
atively a gainer by the wars in which she had been engaged. She 
had taken the Morea from the Venetians, recovered from Austria 
Belgrade, Servia, and some provinces of Transylvania and Wal'achia, 
and had hitherto baffled the attempts of Russia, to get absolute pos- 
session of the Crimea, and of the mouths of the Danube. 

8. France obtained little in point of extent by the treaty of Aix- 
la-Chapelle, but that little was of extreme importance. The posses- 
sion of Lorraine, in addition to Alsace, and several strong forts on the 
Rhine, strengthened and completed, in the most perfect manner, her 
eastern frontier, and placed her in a most commanding attitude with 
regard to the German states. During the administration of cardinal 
Fleury, which lasted till the year 1,743, her marine had been de- 
plorably neglected, while the English had been able to enrich them- 
selves at the expense of the French, particularly by intercepting 
many valuable convoys, and capturing many ships of her reduced navy. 

9. An author of reputation has proposed to throw the different 
European states, at the conclusion of the peace of 1,748, into the 
four following classes :— 

1. Those that having armies, fleets, money, and territorial resour 
se«, could make war without foreign alliances. Such were England 
and France. 

2. Those that with considerable and powerful armies, were de- 
pendent on foreign resources. Austria, Prussia, and Russia. 

3 Those that could not engage in war, but in league with other 
states, subsidized by them, and always regarded in the light of sec- 
ondary powers by the large ones. Portugal, Sardinia, Sweden, 
Denmark. 

4. Such as were interested in maintaining themselves in the same 
condition, and free from the encroachment of others. Switzerland, 
Genoa, Venice, and the German states. 

Holland, Spain, and Naples, being omitted in the above account, 



MODERN HISTORY, 231 

might reasonably be thrown into a fifth class, as countries generally 
so connected with England, France, and Austria, as to be constantly 
involved in every war affecting either of those countries. 



SECTION VI. 
OF THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR, 1,775—1,762. 

1. Though for some short time after the conclusion of the peace 
of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1 ,748, England and France seemed to enjoy, 
in no common degree, the blessings of peace, and to be upon a foot- 
ing of perfect amity with each other, yet it would appear that the 
seeds of a future war were sown in the very circumstances of that 
convention. England was left in possession of such a preponderating 
force at sea, while the French marine, through the parsimony or in- 
attention of cardinal Fleury, had fallen into so low a state of depres- 
sion, that it is not to be wondered that all who were interested about 
the latter, should have their minds filled with jealousy and resentment. 
This was soon manifested, not only by the vigorous attempts made at 
this time to restore the marine of France, but in the projects formed 
for dispossessing the English of their principal settlements in the East 
Indies and America ; a blow which might have been far more fatal to 
the English nation, than any leagues or confederacies in favour of the 
pretender. To secure the co-operation and support of Spain in these 
designs, France had endeavoured, in the year 1,753, to draw the lat- 
ter into a family compact, which, though afterwards brought about, 
was at this time successfully frustrated, by the extraordinary care 
and vigilance of the British minister at Madrid. 

2. The peace established in Europe in 1,748, can scarcely be said 
to have ever been effectually extended to Asia and America. The 
conquests on each side indeed had been relinquished and surrendered 
by that treaty, but in a most negligent manner with respect to limits 
and boundaries ; and in each of those distant settlements, France at 
that time happened to have able and enterprising servants, who 
thought they saw, in their respective governments, such means of 
aggrandizing themselves and their country, and of thwarting the 
British interest, as wer« not to be overlooked or neglected. In the 
East Indies very extraordinary attempts were made to reduce the 
whole peninsula of India Proper, in short, the whole Mogul empire, 
under the dominion of France, by an artful interference in the ap- 
pointment of the governors of kingdoms and provinces, the Sovhahr 
dars, Nabobs, and Rajahs. The power of the mogul had been irrevoca- 
bly shaken by Kouli-Khan, in 1,738, from which time the viceroys 
and other subordinate governors had slighted his authority, and, "in 
a greater or less degree, become independent. The interference of 
the French was calculated to throw things into confusion, by dispos- 
sessing those who were adverse to them of their governments and 
territories, and thus compelling them, as it were, to seek succour from 
the English ; which ultimately brought the two rival nations of Eu- 
rope into a state of Hostility, not as avowed principals, but as the 
auxiliaries of the different native princes or nabobs. In no long 
course of time, things took a turn entirely in favour of the English 
and their allies; the French were baffled in all their projects, every 
place they possessed taken from them, a suspension of arms agreed 
upon, in 1 ,754, and the French governor, Dupleix, the ambitious and 

A a 2 *** 



i 



282 MODERN HISTORY. 

enterprising author and fomenter of all the troubles, but who had 
been ill-supported by his government at home, recalled from India. 

3. It was at this period that the celebrated Mr. Clive, afterwards 
lord Clive, first distinguished himself, who had not only discernment 
enough to see through and detect all the artifices and designs of 
Dupleix, but, though not brought up to the military profession, soon 
displayed such skill and courage in conducting the operations of the 
army, as speedily established his fame, and laid the foundation for his 
future elevation and glory. 

4. In America, the boundaries of the ceded provinces not having 
been justly defined in the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, the French had 
formed a design of connecting, by a chain of torts, their two distant 
colonies of Canada and Louisiana, and to confine the English entirely 
within that tract of country which lies between the Alleghany and 
Apalachian mountains and the sea. No part of this design could be 
carried on without manifest encroachment on territories previously, 
either by agreement, settlement, or implication, appropriated to 
others ! Where the boundaries were not precisely defined, all that was 
not English or French, belonged to the native tribes, and the only 
policy that the European colonists had to observe, was to conciliate 
the friendship, or resist the attacks of these ferocious neighbours. But 
the scheme the French had in agitation threatened to be extremely 
injurious to the English colonists ; giving them, in case of war, a fron- 
tier of fifteen hundred miles to defend, not merely against a race of 
savages, as heretofore, but against savages supported by disciplined 
troops, and conducted by French officers. 

5. It was not possible for England long to contemplate these ag- 
gressions and projects without interfering; but her means of resisting 
them were not equal to those by which the French were enabled to 
carry them into execution. The English colonies were notoriously 
divided by distinct views and interests ; had many disagreements and 
differences among themselves, which seemed, for some time at least, 
totally to prevent their acting in concert, however necessary to 
their best interests. The French depended on no such precarious 
support, but were united both in their object and operations. Hos- 
tilities, however, did not actually commence till the year 1,755, from 
which period the contest in North America was carried on with 
various success, between the French and English, severally assisted 
by different tribes of Indians ; in the course of which, it is more than 
probable, that sad acts of cruelty may have been perpetrated, and 
both nations have been to blame in some particulars ; but it is cer- 
tainly remarkable, that each party stands charged exclusively with 
such atrocities by the historians of (he adverse side ; and while the 
English writers attribute the whole war to the intrigues and en- 
croachments of the French, the latter as confidently ascribe it to the 
cupidity and aggressions of the English. It is very certain, however, 
that, before the war actually commenced, the French court made 
such strong but insincere professions of amity, and a desire of peace, 
as to deceive its own minister at the court of St. James's, M. de 
Mirepoix, who felt himself so ill-treated in being made the tool of 
such duplicity and dissimulation, as to cause him to repair to Paris, 
to remonstrate with the administration who had so cajoled him. It 
is necessary to mention these things, where historical truth is the 
great object in view. 

6. At the commencement of this contest between France and 
England, the former seems to have been most successful on land : 



MODERN HISTORY. 283 

but the latter, and to a much greater degree, at sea. Before the 
end of the first year of the war, no less than tnree hundred French 
merchant vessels, some of them extremely rich, with eight thousand 
sailors, being brought into the English ports ; and while the rate of 
insurance in the latter country continued as usual, in France it 
quickly rose to 30 per cent., a pretty strong indication of the com- 
parative inferiority of the latter, as far as regarded her marine, and 
the safety of her navigation. 

7. But it was soon found expedient by one, if not by both parties, 
to divert the attention from colonial to continental objects ; a meas- 
ure which, as in a former instance, the French writers ascribe 
entirely to England, and the English writers as confidently to France ; 
but it is sufficiently clear that the latter first entertained views upon 
the electorate of Hanover, which gave that turn to the war in gen- 
eral. Considering what had passed in the preceding struggle upon 
the continent, nothing could be more strange than the conduct of the 
different states of Europe on this particular occasion. Instead of 
receiving assistance from the empress queen, whose cause England 
had so long and so magnanimously supported, and who was bound 
by treaty to contribute her aid in case of attack, Maria Theresa 
evaded the applications made to her by the court of St. James's, 
(perhaps in rather too high and peremptory a tone,) on the pretence 
that the war between France and England had begun in America ; 
and she applied herself with peculiar assiduity to recover, through 
the aid of Russia, the provinces of Silesia and Crlatz, which had been 
ceded to the Prussian monarch. 

8. It has been conjectured that her imperial majesty had been 
greatly offended at the preliminaries of peace, in 1,748, having 
been signed by England without her approbation, and that she was 
capable of carrying her resentment so far as voluntarily to throw 
herself into the arms of France, without further consideration ; 
while the French king, whose strange course of life had been too 
openly ridiculed by the king of Prussia, foolishly suffered himself to 
be cajoled into an alliance with Austria, after three hundred years of 
warfare, against his former active and powerful ally ; thereby break- 
ing through the wise system of Richelieu, and helping to raise the 
very power, of whose greatness France had the most reason to be 
jealous ; but Maria Theresa, and her minister, prince Kaunitz, to 
produce this great change in the policy of France, had stooped to 
datter and conciliate the king's mistress, the marchioness of Pom- 
padour. 

9. Fortunately for England, however, the conduct of these two 
courts quickly determined the king of Prussia to form an alliance 
with the elector of Hanover ; to stifle ancT forget all former differ- 
ences and animosities, and peremptorily to resist the entrance of for- 
eign troops into Germany ; a measure which, though first directed 
against Russia, subsidized by England, equally applied to France. 
An alliance between the kings of Great Britain and Prussia had long 
been contemplated by some of the ablest statesmen of the former 
country, as the most natural and wisest connexion that could be 
formed to counteract the projects and power of France. Hitherto 
strong personal jealousies and ill-will on the part of the two sove- 
reigns had prevented any such union, and now it was brought about 
by accident ; much more, however, to the advantage of Prussia than 
of Great Britain. It had been proposed in England, to subsidize 
Russia, but the negotiations of the former with the king of Prussia, 



Zti4 MODERN HISTORY. 

whom the czarina personally disliked^ produced a close but unex 
pected union of Russia, Austria, and I ranee ; not so much against 
England, perhaps, as against Prussia, nor yet so much against the 
kingdom of Prussia as against the king himself. 

10. Such was the commencement of what has been termed the 
seven years' war. It seemed soon to be forgotten that it was origin- 
ally a maritime or colonial war. The whole vengeance of France 
and Austria, ^ in 1 ,757, was directed against the king of Prussia, and 
electorate of Hanover. The Prussian monarch, relying on his well- 
organized army and abundant treasury, despised the powerful com- 
bination against him, and commenced the war in a most imposing, 
though precipitate manner, by dispossessing, at the very outset, the 
king of Poland, elector of Saxony, in alliance with Austria, of his 
capital, of hin whole army, and of his electoral dominions, in a way 
little creditable to his character, notwithstanding the strong political 
motives alleged in his subsequent manifestoes. The situation of 
France, by this sudden manoeuvre, was certainly rendered most ex- 
traordinary. At the commencement of the former war, she had 
done her utmost to dethrone Augustus, king of Poland, in favour of 
Stanislaus, whose daughter had married the French king ; and she 
had now just as strong and urgent a reason to assist in restoring Au- 
gustus to his hereditary dominions, the daughter of the latter being 
married to the dauphin, and the life of the dauphiness having been 
endangered by the intelligence received of the rigorous treatment of 
her royal parents. 

1 1 . It was during the seven years' war, that Frederic of Prussia 
acquired that glory in the field which has rendered his reign so 
conspicuous and remarkable. The intended victim, as he had great 
reason to suppose, of an overwhelming confederacy of crowned 
heads, he lost no time in defending himself against their attacks, by 
occupying the territories of those who threatened him, so suddenly 
and arbitrarily indeed, with regard to Saxony, as to give otfence to 
the greater part of Europe ; but generally contending with surprising 
success against superior armies, though incessantly summoned from one 
field of battle to another, by the numerous and divided attacks of his 
opponents : nor was there one of all the powers that menaced him. 
whom he did not find means to humble, and in some instances punish 
most severely, at tirst, with an impetuosity bordering upon rashness-, 
afterwards, by more wary and circumspect proceedings. In Silesia, 
Saxony, Brandenbourg, Hanover, and Westphalia, he had to contend 
with the armies of the empire, Austria, Russia, Sweden, France, and 
Saxony : 200,000 men are supposed to have fallen annually in these 
campaigns. Though often worsted, (as must be the case, where no 
consideration of superior numbers is allowed to operate as a check,) his 
great genius was never more manifested, than in the quick reparation 
of such reverses. Otten did his situation appear perfectly desperate, 
both to friends and enemies, yet as often did he suddenly succeed in 
some new effort, and in extricating himself from disasters which 
threatened entirely to overwhelm him; being all the while under 
the ban of tiie empire, in virtue o[ a decree of the aulic council, 
which bound every German circle, in obedience to the imperial 
orders, to assist in depriving him of his possessions, dignities, and 
prerogatives. The rapidity of his motions was beyond all example; 
neither danger nor misfortune could dishearten him ; and had his 
moderation been but equal to his courage, had he, in all cases, been 
as humane as he was brave, his military character would have 



MODERN HISTORY. 2Qb 

stood higher, perhaps, than that of any other commander, ancient or 
modern. 

12. The army, it must be acknowledged, for some time afforded 
but little assistance to, ifit did not actually embarrass, the operations 
of Frederic. A formidable force of 38^000 Hanoverian, Hessian, 
and other troops, under the command of the duke of Cumberland, 
had, in a most extraordinary manner, been reduced, though neither 
beaten nor actually disarmed, to a state of inactivity, and the king's 
German dominions abandoned to the enemy, by a convention the 
most singular upon the records of history ; and if actually necessary, 
only rendered so by the impolitic movements of the commander-in- 
chief, who, instead of endeavouring to join the Prussians, after a 
sharp contest, in which the French had the advat;' age, retreated in a 
totally different direction, merely to keep up, as r sas been supposed , 
a communication with the place to which the archives and mosi 
valuable effects of Hanover had been removed, 

13. This convention, indeed, signed at Closter <even, September 
8, 1 ,757, was said to have been concluded against ihe wishes of the 
royal commander himself, and entirely at the instauce and requisition 
of the regency of Hanover. Be this, however, as it may, it was un- 
doubtedly almost fatal to the king of Prussia, and exceedingly 
humiliating to England, though ultimately attended with this good 
effect, that it seems to have roused and stimulated both the people 
and government to greater exertions. Unfortunately much of this 
good spirit and renewed activity was wasted in fruitless attempts on 
the coast of France, which cost the nation much money, and, as it 
turned out contributed little or nothing to her glory and advantage ; 
the demolition of the works at Cherburg, and capture of Belle Isle, 
1,761, which was of use afterwards, as an exchange for Minorca, 
being all she had to boast of. To her great and indefatigable ally, 
the king of Prussia, these expeditions to the French coast could be 
of no use, except in diverting a part at least of the French forces, 
which might otherwise have been opposed to him ; but they had 
scarcely this effect, and though that great minister, Mr. Pitt, after- 
wards lord Chatham, appears to have been the chief promoter of 
these measures, in opposition to many members of the British 
cabinet, the policy of them, even had they been more successful, has 
been pretty generally questioned. Her soldiers, many thought, were 
principally wanting in Germany, the grand theatre of military opera- 
tions, to strengthen and give effect to the judicious and bold measures 
of prince Ferdinand, who, being, by the advice, it is said, of the 
Prussian monarch, on the retirement of the duke of Cumberland, 
after the convention spoken of, placed at the head of the allied 
army, had succeeded in compelling the French to evacuate Hanover, 
Brunswick, and Bremen. England indeed had been liberal in her 
subsidies, even to a degree that some thought unwise and extrava- 
gant, and she had been successful in America, Asia, Africa, and gen- 
erally on the ocean. The French navy indeed, was almost annihilat- 
ed ; and her colonies, both in the east and west, had fallen a prey to 
the English armies ; even Canada, the source and focus, as it were, of 
the transatlantic disputes between England and France, was complete- 
ly subdued by the armies under the command of Wolfe, Townshend, 
Monckton, Murray, and Amherst, who displayed such zeal, valour, 
and abilities, in the capture of the towns of Quebec and Montreal, as 
have never been exceeded. 

14. Though prince Ferdinand had driven the French back, it was 



286 MODERN HISTORY. 

doubted whether the forces under his command would be sufficient 
to maintain these advantages ; apprehensions, indeed, were entertain 
ed, that he might be reduced to form- another convention as humiliat- 
ing as that of Closter-seven. But the genius and valour of this 
great prince surmounted the difficulties in which he seemed to be 
placed, by most judiciously, and with no small art, compelling the 
French to come to an engagement, under circumstances peculiarly 
favourable to the allied army ; and the battle of Minden, which took 
place August 1, 1,759, though the subject afterwards of much jealousy 
amongst the allies, effectually relieved the electorate of Hanover, and 
the greater part of Westphalia, from the presence of the French. 

15. It was at this period, August 10, 1,759, that Ferdinand VI., 
of Spain, died, and was succeeded by his brother, don Carlos, king 
of the two Sicilies, under the title of Charles III., in consequence 
of which succession, and according to the terms of the treaty of 
Aix-la-Chapelle, don Philip should have surrendered the duchies of 
Parma, Placentia, and Guastalla to Austria and Sardinia, and remov- 
ed to Naples, (see Sect. V. § 5 ;) but as Charles III. had never acced- 
ed to that treaty, he left the crown of the two Sicilies to his third son, 
Ferdinand, and don Philip agreed, and was allowed by Austria, to 
retain the three duchies,- the courts of France and Spain having 
managed to quist the alarms of Sardinia, in regard to the reversion 
of Placentia. 

16. The removal of don Carlos to Spain, at a time when so many 
advantages had been gained over the French by the English, at sea 
and in America, justly alarmed the new monarch for his own colonies 
and settlements in those parts ; and these apprehensions soon became 
a reason for his entering into a family compact with France, which 
had been attempted before, but frustrated by the care and vigilance 
of the British minister. It was in fact entirely arranged and con- 
cluded in the month of August, 1,761, and extended to all the Bour- 
bon princes ; it was a treaty of mutual and reciprocal naturalization, 
and equality of rights, to the subjects of all the Bourbon states, 
France, Spain, the two Sicilies, Parma, and Placentia, with a general 
guarantee of each other's dominions, under all possible circumstances 
except one, which was, that Spain should be excused from interfering 
in any quarrels of France, arising out of the treaty of Westphalia, 
unless some maritime power should take part in such disputes, or 
France be invaded. 

17. The above clause in the treaty was judged to be so evidently 
aimed at England, as to justify an immediate declaration of war 
against Spain on the part of the former, which accordingly took 
place early in the year 1,762 ; nor was Spain backward in following 
the example against England, in resentment, as it was alleged, of the 
supercilious and arbitrary manner, in which the latter had interfered 
with regard to the family compact. 

18. The first fruits of this extraordinary confederacy were a gross 
attempt upon the independency of Portugal, as an ally of England 
by France and Spain ; an attempt the most appalling" to Portugal, 
had not her brave and honourable sovereign resolved rather to per- 
ish than to submit to tbe terms dictated to him by the combined mon- 
archs. England was in every way bound to give aid and support to 
her ancient and faithful ally, on so trying an occasion ; and, fortunately, 
her help came so opportunely and so promptly, as to enable the 
king of Portugal to repel the Spaniards, who had not only passed the 
frontiers, but actually taken several towns. Thus was that monarch 



MODERN HISTORY. 28-/ 

and his dominions saved from the effects of as wicked and arbitrary 
a design as was ever entertained against an independent or neutral 
potentate, and that on the sole ground of his connexion with Eng- 
land at the moment ; to whose resentmen-t he would of course have 
been exposed, had he tamely submitted to the tyrannical demands of 
France and Spain. In either case, he seemed to be threatened with 
ruin and destruction, had things taken a different turn, from what 
actually came to pass. 

1 9. The hostilities into which Great Britain was driven by this 
unprovoked attack upon Portugal, as well as by the threatening 
aspect and spirit of the family compact, which seemed to undo all 
that had been accomplished by the succession war, were in every 
instance crowned with success ; so that in both hemispheres, her arms 
may be said to have been victorious, and her triumph complete ; and 
Spain had great cause to rue her short concern in the war, into 
which she had been cajoled by France, and which operated as fully 
to the disappointment of the latter power. In the mean while, the 
king of Prussia, who had been brought to the very verge of ruin, 
according to his own statement and confession, was most unexpect- 
edly relieved by surprising changes in the Russian councils, through 
the demise of Elizabeth, and accession of Peter III., whose reign in- 
deed was too short to enable him to render any real assistance to 
the king of Prussia, in the field, which might have been expected 
from the enthusiastic admiration with which his actions were beheld 
by the Russian monarch. But this weak, though benign prince, in 
consequence of his too extensive plans of reform, and a difference 
with his empress, was soon removed ; and though his successor and 
consort, Catherine the second, did not by any means pay the same 
court to Frederic, yet her opposition to him was very slight, and 
soon terminated by a treaty of peace, in which she was followed by 
Sweden. 

20. All these things evidently tended towards a general peace, if 
England, who had certainly been the most successful of all the pow- 
ers concerned, could be brought to consent to be stopped in her 
career of victory and triumph. A change of ministry had, however, 
laid the foundation for such measures. Mr. Pitt, who was for the 
continuance of the war, on some private information, as it has been 
thought, of the progress and terms of the family compact, had re- 
signed soon after the demise of the king, George II. ; and lord Bute, 
who owed his place and power as minister, much more to the per- 
sonal good-will and attachment of the new king, than to the voice 
and favour of the people, foreseeing that it might be difficult for 
hirn to raise either money or men for the prosecution of the war, 
(bounties for recruits, in particular, having risen to an unexampled 
height,) and having against hirn many important individuals of both 
parties, entered freely into negotiations with France, which were 
brought to an issue by the peace of Paris, (or Fontainebleau,) 1,763. 

21. This treaty was not popular in England, though, undoubtedly, 
she reaped the benefit of many remarkable concessions, particularly 
in America, where she acquired, not only 1 he whole' province of 
Canada, but part of Louisiana ; the junction of which two distant 
French settlements, to the embarrassment, and possibly, total subjec- 
tion of the English colonies, had been the express occasion of the 
war; but by many persons it was thought, and perhaps with great 
reason, that England had surrendered too much, considering the 
high situation in which she stood, and the advantages that might 



288 MODERN HISTORY. 

have been reaped by a little longer continuance of the war ; ami m 
what she both surrendered and retained, an ill and impolitic selec- 
tion it was alleged, had been made of posts and settlements. The 
treaty of Hubertsburg, by which the war was terminated between 
Austria and Prussia in the same year, 1,763, restored matters, in re- 
gard to those two powers, exactly to their former state, after seven 
most destructive and expensive campaigns ! Nothing of territory 
ivas lost and nothing gained by either party. England, undoubtedly, 
was left in the highest state of prosperity at the conclusion of these 
two treaties. Her navy unimpared, or rather augmented at the ex- 
pense oi the navy of France ; her commerce extending from one 
extremity of the globe to the other, with an accession of important 
settlements ceded to her by France in Asia, Africa, and America. 



sp:ction vil 

FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE III. 1,760, TO THE COM 
MENCEMENT OF THE DISPUTES WITH AMERICA, 1,764. 

1. Though a new enemy, for a very short time, was added to tin- 
list of those who were contending with England and her allies, 
when George the second died, by the accession of Spain to the 
family compact, and continental confederacy, in 1,761, yet the seven 
years' war, through the exhaustion of the allies of Austria, par 
ticularly the Saxons, Poles, and French, may be said to have been 
drawing to a conclusion, when George 111. ascended the throne of 
Great Britain, on the demise of his grandfather, October 25, 1,760. 
For the termination of that war, see Sect. VI. 

2. Much notice was taken of a passage in the king's first speech 
to his parliament, in which he expressed the glory he felt in having 
been born and educated in Britain ; and though some have pretended 
to see in it, a reflection on his royal predecessors, yet it was surely 
wise in the first sovereign of the house of Hanover, who stood clear 
of foreign manners, and foreign partialities, so to bespeak the love 
and attachment of his subjects. It is true, indeed, that England had 
prospered in no common degree from the first accession of that 
illustrious family, but it cannot be denied, that a distaste of foreign 
manners, as well as a jealousy of foreign partialities, had occasionally 
interrupted the proceedings of government, and were at all events 
calculated to keep up, in the minds of the disaffected, a remembrance 
of the breach that had been made in the succession to the throne. 
Fourteen years having passed since any attempt had been made to 
restore the Stuart family, and the condition of that family having 
become such, as to render any further endeavours to that effect, ex 
tremely improbable, nothing more seemed wanting to remove all 
remaining prejudices against the Brunswick line of princes, than 
that the sovereign should be a native of the land he ruled. 

3. In addition to this tie upon his subjects, every thing seemed ta 
conspire, as far as regarded the character, manners, and disposition 
of the young king, to secure to him the attachment of his people ; 
and to give hopes of a quiet and tranquil reign. One of the very 
first acts of which was calculated to impress the idea of his being a 
true friend to the liberty of the subject, by rendering the judges 
independent of the crown. His majesty was married, soon after his 
accession, to the princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, with 



MODERN HISTORY. 289 

whom he was crowned at Westminster, on the 22d day of Septem- 
ber, 1,761. 

4. However promising the appearances both of external and in- 
ternal tranquillity might be, at the commencement of the new 
reign, it was not long before the nation became agitated by party 
disputes and differences, of no small importance. In 1,762, a ques- 
tion arose, which though it led to very distressing tumults, terminat- 
ed in the relief of the subject from an arbitrary process, exceedingly 
repugnant to the spirit of the constitution, and the great charter of 
/British liberty. General warrants, and the seizure of private papers 
without sufficient necessity, the legality of which had been disputed, 
in the case of Mr. Wilkes, member for Ailesbury, during which that 
gentlemen displayed considerable fortitude, though certainly with 
great failure of respect towards the crown, were declared to be 
illegal by a solemn decree of parliament, 1,765, nor has any attempt 
been since made to reinvest the government with so dangerous and 
formidable a power. The question of general warrants, however, 
was not the only one in which Mr. Wilkes appeared as the champion 
of the people's liberties. Being elected for Middlesex, after having 
been expelled the house, he claimed his seat, in defiance of the res- 
olutions of parliament, but was not allowed to sit. Five years after 
wards, he was permitted again to enter the house of commons ; but 
in this instance the parliament maintained its power of declaring a 
particular individual disqualified, against the decision of a majority 
of electors ; a curious point as affecting the constitution, and the 
elective franchise. 

5. Though the courts of Vienna, France, and Prussia, had cause to 
be tired of the war. in which they had been engaged since the year 
1,755, it is certain that England was in a state to continue it, especial- 
ly by sea, when the treaty of Paris, or Fontainebleau, was concluded, 
in 1,763. As long as Mr. Pitt continued a member of administration, 
the war had been carried on vigorously, and had become exceeding- 
ly popular, so that on the resignation of that great minister, in 1,761, 
and the appointment of lord Bute, whose distrust of his own abilities 
to continue it, disposed him to listen to the overtures of France, 
great discontents arose. The minister was suspected of harbouring 
in his breast the most despotic principles, and of having inculcated 
the same into the mind of his sovereign, while yet a youth. He 
was supposed to possess too exclusive an influence in that quarter; 
and though, in private life, a most respectable nobleman, of great 
worth and probity, learning, and talents, his public measures were 
the continual theme of obloquy and abuse. Had Mr. Pitt continued 
in office, it is more than probable that the allies might have gained 
greater advantages on the continent, and the Spaniards been more 
severely punished for their interference ; so that the pacific meas- 
ures of the new minister, drew upon him the displeasure, if not the 
contempt, as well of his own countrymen, as of the King of Prussia 
also ; who in his writings has inveighed greatly against the prevail- 
ing influence of the noble earl at this period, in the cabinet and coun- 
cils of Great Britain. 

6. The riots and tumults excited by the proceedings against Mr. 
Wilkes, and the extreme unpopularity of lord Bute, contributed to 
render the first years of the reign of George III. exceedingly unqui- 
et, and to involve his majesty in many unpleasant difficulties, from 
the addresses, petitions, and remonstrances, which flowed in upon 
him, often couched in such language as it was impossible not to re- 

Bb 37 



290 MODERN HISTORY. 

seat, and as often insinuating what, perhaps, was not founded on 
truth : for it has never yet been clearly ascertained that the public 
actually suffered from any improper secret influence, or that the 
measures of lord Bute, with regard to the peace of Paris, all things 
considered, were impolitic or unwise. The worst feature in this 
peace, with regard to England, seems to have been, the failure to 
guard against the effects, in future, of the family compact, which 
was left in full force. Mr. Pitt had his eye constantly upon this, and, 
had be continued in power, would, no doubt, have continued the 
war with spirit and perseverance : this great minister had retired 
undisgraced ; he received a pension indeed for himself, and a peer- 
age for his lady. His politics, to the day of his death, continued 
widely different from those of lord Bute, and were constantly more 
popular : but the great fault of the latter seems to have been, that 
he engaged in public business, contrary to the bent of his own dispo- 
sition, and was too sensible of his unpopularity, to undertake any 
measure that required much public support. All he did, therefore, 
seemed to be managed in the way of private influence, cabal, and 
intrigue. 

7. In addition to the addresses and remonstrances alluded to in the 
foregoing section, the popular fervour and agitation received consid- 
erable encouragement from the letters of an anonymous writer, 
never yet discovered, — a writer who displayed such an extraordi- 
nary knowledge of the proceedings of the court and cabinet, and 
had the power of expressing himself in a style so vigorous, striking, 
and keenly satirical, as to demand the attention of all parties, and 
confound the majority of those whom he personally attacked. But 
the extreme severity of a concealed and unknown accuser, and the 
gross personalities in which he often indulged, not sparing majesty 
itself, threw a cloud over his writings, which can never be done 
away, to the satisfaction of any candid or liberal mind. Though the 
mention of these celebrated letters is rather anticipated in this place, 
as they did not publicly appear till the year 1,769, yet, as they par- 
ticularly relate to the foregoing transactions, and state of affairs in 
the early years of the reign of George III., and long preceded the 
actual commencement of the war with America, the first authors of 
which he seemed disposed to screen, a better opportunity of intra* 
ducing the subject might scarcely be found. The many fruitless, but 
very curious attempts that have been made, at various times, to dis- 
cover the real author, have contributed, in addition to the extraordi- 
nary character of the work itself, and the political questions discuss- 
ed in it, to prevent its ever sinking into oblivion. The letters of 
Junius, with all their blemishes, will probably never fail to find a 
place in the libraries of the British scholar, and Brilish statesman. 

8. In the prosecution of this work, it should also be noticed, that a 
great constitutional point came under discussion, namely, whether 
ui cases of libel, the jury were judges of the law, as well as of the 
fact. In most other cases, no such difficulty seemed to occur. In 
cases of murder, not only the act of killing, but the murderous in- 
tent, was submitted to the decision of the jury ; and in trials for felony 
of every description, the course was the same. Lord Mansfield, in 
this case, insisted that the jury had only to decide on the fact of 

fmblication, and that the court was to determine upon the law of 
ibel. This has generally been disputed by juries ; and they have 
found ways of evading the difficulty, by either themselves referring 
the law to the judge, by a special verdict, or by pronouncing a gen- 



MODERN HISTORY. 291 

eral acquittal. Unfortunately, libels are of that description aa con 
stantly to excite those jealousies and suspicions, from which every 
court of justice should be free. They affect, also, two of the high 
est privileges of Englishmen, — the right of private judgment, and 
the liberty of the press. In the case of Junius, the point in dispute 
was by no means so settled as to obviate future differences. 

9. The year 1,764 is memorable for the commencement of the 
dispute between Great Britain and her American colonies ; but as 
the history of this contest involves many curious questions of policy; 
as its results, in regard not only to England and America, but to the 
world in general, were very important ; and its termination led to a 
total separation of the colonies from the mother country, thereby 
establishing a distinct state and government of European settlers in 
the western hemisphere, the details of it will be reserved for another 
section. 



SECTION vm. 

DISPUTES BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND HER AMERICAN 
COLONIES. 1,764—1,783. 

1. The seven years 1 war, terminated by the peace of Paris, or Fon- 
tainebleau, in 1,763, had been begun in America, as has been shown. 
(Sect. VI.) Great Britain, at considerable expense or men and 
money, had resisted the encroachments of France on the British 
colonies, and thereby afforded to the latter, protection, perhaps be- 
yond what any commercial benefits, under the colonial system, 
could be said fully to compensate. A question therefore "arose^ 
whether the colonies might not be called upon to contribute, by di- 
rect taxation, to the relief of the general expenses and burthens of 
the mother country. The national debt, it was argued by the British 
government, was the debt of every individual in the whole empire, 
whether in Asia, America, or nearer home. 

2. The question, however, was no sooner started than decided 
by administration ; chiefly through the influence and on the sugges- 
tion of Mr. George Grenville, then prime-minister, who, in the very 
year succeeding the peace of Paris, procured the stamp-act to be 
passed, by which the Americans were directly subjected to a tax 
imposed by the British parliament, without their own consent, not 
immediately applicable to their own wants or necessities, and contrary 
to every former mode of raising money for such purposes. This 
was certainly sufficient to excite alarm, and lead to questions of pol- 
cy and prudence ; of power and right ; of legislation and represen- 
tation ; never yet so thoroughly discussed or investigated. Hitherto, 
without questioning the power, government had forborne from 
taxing them as a matter of policy and propriety ; and thus, as it 
was well said at the time, those two very difficult points, superiority 
in the presiding state, and freedom in the subordinate, had been prac- 
tically reconciled. 

3. The situation of America rendered these questions the more 
important and alarming to the mother country, in case of opposition, 
as having been originally peopled from Europe, in a great measure, 
by refugees, exiles, and persons adverse to the governments, which 
they had left, both in church and state, and well inclined, probably, to 



292 MODERN HISTORY. 

assert a republican independence. Their legislative assemblies were 
already of the popular cast, and their feelings and spirits accordant 
It must also be admitted, that upon the very ground of pecuniary or 
other aids, they had much to allege in respect of their beneficial 
returns to England, in taking her manufactures, and having assisted 
her in the conquest of Canada. Most unfortunately, the very grants 
which had been made by their assemblies, in aid of England, during 
the last war, were alleged as an argument (a most irritating one, un- 
doubtedly,) of their ability to pay any imposts the parliament might 
choose to lay upon them. 

4. As the ministry had decided hastily upon the general question, 
they seem also to have suffered themselves to be precipitated into 
some of the worst measures they could have adopted to render their 
novel demands palatable. Their very first tax, imposed by the 
stamp act of 1,764, though simple in its principle, was ill-suited to 
the state of America. The mere distribution of the stamps, through 
such a variety of different states, involved in it a thousand difficulties; 
and there were provisions in the act itselfj which might, if at all 
abused or neglected, have subjected the people to unheard of vexa- 
tions and oppressions. It is scarcely, therefore, to be wondered that, 
on its first promulgation in America, the act should have been re- 
ceived with the greatest indignation, and even with defiance. 

5. In the mean time, the cause of the Americans was espoused 
by a strong party at home, a party, so far from being contemptible, 
as to include some of the first persons of the nation, both in rank and 
importance. The debates in both houses were violent, but the topics 
discussed, in every point of view, interesting. The friends of the 
Americans, if it may be proper now to call them so, obtained and 
swayed, for a very short period, the helm of government. In June, 
1,765, the Grenvilie administration was dismissed, and a new one, at 
the head of which was placed the marquis of Rockingham, came 
into power, through the mediation of the duke of Cumberland. 
They continued in office, however, for little more than one year; 
but in that short space of time, the stamp-act, which had been to ill 
received in America, was formally repealed. 

6. But the grand question relating to the right of taxation was 
by no means determined by this measure : a declaratory act was 
particularly passed at the same time, for maintaining the constitu- 
tional authority of Great Britian, in " all cases whatsoever ;" and 
though there was certainly no design, in those who promoted the 
repeal, to act upon this authority, by establishing any other tax of 
a similar kind, yet the colonists were prepared, as much as ever, 
to dispute the principle, as far as it regarded taxation ; and their 
courage and confidence at this time stood high, in consequence of 
the importance which had been given to them in the last war, and 
their emancipation from all dread of the French and Spaniards, by 
the cession of Canada and the Floridas. In the colony of Virginia 
the right of taxation was voted to rest entirely in the king, or his 
representative, and the general assembly of the colony. This was, 
undoubtedly, the usual course of things ; and in this way subsidies to 
a considerable amount had been granted to the crown. This prece- 
dent was soon followed by others of the legislative bodies, and 
adopted in the general congress of New York, 1,765. 

7. It was not pretended that the Americans paid no taxes ; but a 
distinction was now set up, which there had been no occasion to 
insist upon before. To external taxation, through the operation of 



MODERN HISTORY. 293 

laws of trade and navigation, enacted in the mother country, they 
were willing to yield submission ; they had constantly done so, nor 
were they now disposed to resist such enactments; but all inter- 
nal duties for raising a revenue, or supporting establishments, were 
held to be very differently circumstanced. Taxes of this nature 
were considered as being, in the very language of parliament itself, 
gifts, and grants. None, therefore, it was urged, could give the 
money of America but the people of America themselves. If they 
chose to make such grants, they might receive a legislative sanction, a9 
in England ; but legislation and taxation were distinct things. Tax- 
ation, according to the spirit of the English constitution, implying 
consent, direct or by representation, could not otherwise be rendered 
either legal or just. Local circumstances would render the repre- 
sentation of America, in the British parliament, impracticable; 
and a supposed virtual representation was no less than mockery. 
The representatives of England, in taxing others, taxed themselves 
also ; but this could not be the case in regard to American imposts. 

8. Such were some of the strongest reasons urged against the 
measure in general ; but, as the right of taxation had not been ex- 
pressly given up by any part in England, but rather insisted upon in the 
declaratory act, no concession short of this seemed likely to do good. 
The stamp-act had caused an irritation, which no qualified repeal 
could allay internal taxation was not only resisted as an encroachment 
on established rights and usages, but, in resentment of such wrongs, 
attempts were made to hinder the further operation even of exter- 
nal taxation. Non-importation, and non-consumption agreements 
were soon entered into, and associations formed to methodise and 
consolidate the opposition to government. A resolution had been 
passed when lord North was minister, promising tc desist from all 
taxation, except commercial imposts, when-ever any one of the 
colonial assemblies should vote a reasonable sum, as a revenue, to be 
appropriated by parliament ; but this had no good effect. 

9. In so embarrassed a state of things, it is not very surprising 
that the ministry at home should have entertained wrong measures, 
and miscalculated the effects of the plans they were pursuing. 
The truth of history tends to show that, however they might be 
embarrassed by an active opposition in parliament, that opposition 
fairly forewarned them of the consequences of their meditated pro 
ceedings, which came to pass exactly as they had been foretold. 
But after this demand had once provoked the question of right, and 
that question had divided the people of both countries into two strong 
parties, things soon fell into that state, in which it became impossible 
to restore affairs to their original condition, either by perseverance 
or concession. Every effort of coercion was resented as an illegal 
encroachment; every conciliatory proposition received as a proof 
oi alarm and timidity, and as a pledge of victory and success to fu- 
ture opposition. 

10. It has been questioned whether independence was not in the 
view of the Americans fiom the very first stirring of the question, 
or even previously ; but had this been the case, they would have 
been more prepared ; their addresses to the king and parliament, on 
various occasions, after the commencement of the dispute, must have 
6een fallacious to the highest pitch of dissimulation, if they had de- 
termined against all compromise from the very beginning ; but, in- 
deed, the remonstrances and complaints of General Washington, on 
the ill state of his army, and total want of many essential requisites, 



294 MODERN HISTORY. 

on first taking the command, seem clearly to prove that they were 
driven to assert their independence by the course of things ; a large 
portion of their fellow-subjects and countrymen on both sides of the 
Atlantic, judged them to be oppressed, and thus gave a character to 
iheir opposition which could not very creditably be forfeited. Upon 
the whole it may be considered probable that some of the most 
prominent and active leaders of the revolution had very early con- 
ceived the design of establishing the independence of their country ; 
but that the mass of the people in the colonies, had no such inten- 
tion until after their first successes. 

11. Hostilities did not actually commence till the year 1,775, ten 
years from the first passing of the stamp-act. In a short time after 
the passing of that act, it was repealed, as has been stated ; but in 
1,767 the project of taxing America was revived by Mr. Charles 
Townshend, and from that period to the commencement of the war, 
both countries were in a state of the greatest agitation. Debates 
ran high at home, and in America their gravest proceedings were ac- 
companied with such threats of defiance, and such indignant resent- 
ment of all innovations, as almost necessarily to bring them under the 
strong hand of power. But government underrated their means of 
resistance; when brought into a state of union, by the congress, 
their force was no longer to be despised ; all temporizing expedients 
were at an end, a circumstance ill understood by the ministry at 
home, who lost much time in endeavouring to retrieve matters, by 
fruitless attempts, sometimes in the way of conciliation, and at 
others, of ineflicient resistance. Thus, when in 1,770 many com- 
mercial duties were taken oif, which the mother country nad an un- 
doubted right to impose, the concession was ill received, in conse- 
quence of the single exception of tea, which was continued in order 
to assert the rights and supremacy of Great Britain ; but this was 
done in a manner too imperious, and without sufficient force to subdue 
the resentment it was calculated to excite, at such a moment. At 
the very breaking out of the war, ministers appear to have been by 
far too confident of speedily suppressing so formidable an insurrec- 
tion ; an insurrection which had had time allowed it to organize 
itself, and which had drawn upon it the attention of the whole civ- 
ilized world. 

12. The war may be said to have actually commenced cniy on 
the 14th of April, 1,775, though some English regiments had been 
sent to Boston so early as the year 1,768. In an affair at Lexington, 
amounting to no more than a skirmish, the English were completely 
worsted, a circumstance calculated to give spirits to the Americans, 
at a most awful and momentous period. General Washington, who 
had distinguished himself in the war against the French, and bore a 
most irreproachable character, was appointed to take the command 
of the American army ; a post of the utmost responsibility, and re 
quiring talents, temper, and discretion, of no common description. 

13. The sword being drawn, and no hopes remaining of an arnica 
ble adjustment of differences between the crown and its transatlantic 
subjects, now in a state of open revolt ; and the success of the firs\ 
hostilities having animated the military ardour of the Americans 
they proceeded, by a solemn declaration of the general congress ai 
Philadelphia, July 4, 1,776, to declare the thirteen provinces inde 
pendent; by which act America may be said to have been divided 
from the mother countrv, 294 years after the discovery of that coun 
try by Columbus ; 166 from the first settlement of Virginia; and 15t ; 



MODERN HISTORY. 295 

from the settlement of Plymouth in Massachusetts Bay. The Amei- 
ican Congress exercised its important functions with great energy 
and dignity, and the campaign of 1,776 turned out favourably for the 
Americans, and highly to the credit of their very able and brave 
commander. 

14. Whether it were owing to the low opinion entertained by the 
government at home, of the resistance likely to be offered by the 
Americans, or to a dislike of the cause in which they were engaged 
on the part of the British commanders, it is exceedingly certain, that 
the English army did not obtain the advantages it was supposed it 
might have done, or proceed as if it were able speedily to crush the 
rebellion that had been raised. The American troops were every 
day improving, and every day deriving encouragement, either from 
unexpected successes, or the inactivity of the armies opposed to 
them. On the other hand, the English were either indulging in 
pleasure, when they should have been in action, or disheartened by 
sudden surprises or repulses, which redounded greatly to the credit 
of their less disciplined, and less organized opponents. In a short 
time, however, the war became more complicated, and opened a 
scene, which not only involved the continent of Europe in the con- 
flict of the day, but probably led to changes and convulsions, as ex- 
traordinary and as extensive as ever the world experienced. 

15. In the month of November, 1,776, the celebrated Dr. Franklin 
and Silas Deane had been despatched by congress, to solicit, at the 
court of Versailles, the aid and assistance of French troops. Accord- 
ing to the former course of things, nothing could be more strange 
than such an application, at such a court ; an application from rebel- 
lious subjects, from the assertors of republican independence, to a 
court celebrated for the most refined despotism, and ruling a people, 
heretofore the grossest admirers and flatterers of regal power; an 
application from persons of the simplest habits ; frugal, temperate, 
industrious, and little advanced in civilization, to a court immersed in 
pleasure, gay, and dissipated, profligate and corrupt, civilized to the 
highest pitch of courtly refinement, of polished manners, and of 
splendid luxury . lastly, an application from a people who had car 
ried their dissent from the church of Rome farther than any protes- 
tants in Europe, to a court still subject to the papal see, a cherished 
branch of the catholic church. 

16. Extraordinary, however, in all respects, as this American mis- 
sion seems to have been, it met with a cordial and favourable recep- 
tion. Even the queen of France was found to espouse the cause of 
the revolted subjects of Great Britain, little foreseeing the handle 
she was giving to many keen observers of her own courtly extrava- 
gance and thoughtless dissipation. The die was soon cast ; a formal 
treaty was entered into, acknowledging the independency of Amer- 
ica ; succour and support to a large extent promised, and officers ap- 
pointed to conduct the French forces, likely, it would seem, above 
all others, to imbibe the spirit of freedom, which animated the 
Americans, and to espouse their cause upon principle. They were 
all noble, indeed ; but in America they were sure to be taught how 
vain were such distinctions, if not supported by public opinion. 

17. The English government was not formerly apprised of this 
unexpected alliance, till the year 1,778, when it received a very 
curious and insulting notification of it from the French ambassador. 
It does not appear that the aid thus obtained by the American mis- 
sion, was altogether grateful to the Americans themselves, though ii 



296 MODERN HISTORY. 

had the full effect of raising up new and powerful enemies against 
the mother country, and involving Europe in their cause ; for 
through the French influence, in the year 1,779, Spain joined the 
confederacy against England, and, in 1,780, Holland. In the mean 
while commissioners had been sent from England to America, to 
treat for peace, but the Americans, insisting on the previous ac- 
knowledgment of their independency, rendered their attempts fruit- 
less. 

18. Whatever loss of fame, reputation, and territory Great Britain 
incurred in America, her arms never shone with greater h'stre than 
on some occasions in which she was engaged during this wu\ with 
the confederate powers of Europe ; in Asia particularly, -:ne was 
acquiring an empire ten times greater in wealth and population, than 
ail she had to lose in the west: but of all her achievements at tlr < 
period, none, perhaps, was so conspicuous, none so glorious, as the 
tefence of Gibraltar under General Elliot, afterwards lord Heath- 
field, against the combined forces of Spain and France. The prepa- 
rations made to recover that important fortress for Spain, exceeded 
every thing before known. The ultimate success of the attempt 
was calculated upon as so certain, that some of the French princes 
of the blood, repaired to the Spanish camp merely to witness its sur- 
render. But the heroism of the troops in garrison baffled all their 
designs, and the timely arrival of the British fleet completed the 
triumph, in October, 1,782. The siege (^begun in 1,779) was entire- 
ly abandoned, with the loss of all the Spanish floating batteries, and 
the defeat of the combined fleets of France and Spain, by lord Howe. 
This action took place on the 20th of October ; in the following 
month provisional articles of peace were signed at Paris, by British 
and American commissioners, and early in the ensuing year a treaty 
concluded at Versailles, between Great Britain, France, and Spain, 
to which, in February, Holland also acceded. 

1 9. Towards the close of the war, many important discussions in 
parliament took place on the American affairs, in which it was 
found, that those who had most espoused her cause, on the question 
of internal taxation, and most objected to the measures of administra- 
tion in the conduct of the war, differed, at the last, from each other, 
on the question of American independence ; a difference rendered 
peculiarly memorable, as being the subject of the last speech and 
appearance in parliament of that illustrious statesman, the earl of 
Chatham. On April 7, 1,778, though labouring under a severe fit of 
illness, he appeared in his place, in the house of lords, and delivered 
a most animated and energetic speech, in which he strongly protest- 
ed against the surrender of the sovereignty of Great Britain over 
her colonies ; soon after, rising to reply to the Duke of Richmond, 
he fell back on the seat in a fainting fit, and in a few days expired, 
at his seat in Kent. In four years from this event, Great Britain was 
compelled, to yield upon this great point, and, by the peace of Ver- 
sailles, ratified and concluded September 3, 1,783, the thirteen United 
Colonies of America were admitted to be ".Free, Sovereign^ and indepeif 
deni States." 



MODERN HISTORY, 297 



SECriON IX. 

FRANCE, FROM THE PEACE OF PARIS, 1,763, TO THE 
OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY OF THE STATES GENERAL, 
1,789. 

1. For the affairs of France, from the death of Lewis XIV., to 
the peace of Vienna, 1,738, (see Sect. I.) In the year of 1,740, 
owing to the death of the emperor, Charles VI., Europe was again 
agitated, and France, in espousing the cause of the elector of Bava- 
ria, against the house of Austria, became involved in the war, which 
was terminated by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1,748, (see Sect. 
III.) From the conclusion of the above treaty, to the commence- 
ment of the seven years' war, she enjoyed a state of external peace 
and tranquillity. But though this short interval of repose from war, 
was applied to the improvement of the kingdom, in no common de- 
gree, both in the capital and provinces, by the establishment ol 
schools and hospitals, the erection of public edifices, the building of 
bridges, digging canals, and repairing roads ; in the cultivation and 
improvement of many arts, the extension of commerce, and encour- 
agement of manufactures; of silk, of porcelain, and tapestry, in par- 
ticular; yet amidst all these improvements she enjoyed little of inter- 
nal tranquillity. Religious disputes greatly occupied the attention 
of all ranks of persons, and involved the clergy, the court, the par- 
liaments, and the people, in incessant contests, exceedingly disgrace- 
ful, and; considering the temper of the times, the advancement of 
hmman knowledge, and the progress of ideas, extremely injudicious. 

2. During the reign of Lewis XIV., a fierce contention had arisen 
between the Jesuits and Jansenists, on certain obscure points in 
theology, which, after much fruitless argument, much raillery and 
abuse on both sides, through the influence of the Jesuits with the 
king, were referred to the decision of the Roman pontiff. One hun- 
dred and one propositions, out of one hundred and three, which were 
said to favour the Jansenists, in a book written by the Pere Quesnel, 
were, in the year 1,713, declared by the holy office to be heretical, 
and consequently condemned in form * The interposition of his ho- 
liness had little effect, in regard to the restoration of peace and tran- 
quillity. The public instrument, by which the sentence was passed 
on the Jansenist party, (in the ianguage of Rome commonly called 
the bull " Unigenitusf from the first word with which it begins,) 
became the signal for fresh animosities, murmurs, and complaints. 
The people, the parliament, many prelates, and others of the clergy, 
violently exclaimed against it, as an infringement of the rights of the 
Gallican church, contrary to the laws, and a violation of the freedom 
of opinion in matters ot religion. But the king, acting under the 
same influence as had induced him to forward the appeal, ordered it 
to be received, and in a short time afterwards died. The regent 
duke of Orleans found means to keep things tolerably quiet during 

* The king 1 * confessor, the P. le Tellier, happened to have told th« 
king that this book contained more than a hundred censxwable propositions-. 
To save the credit of the confessor, the pope condemned a hundred and 
one, and stated the above reason for what he had done, in express terms, 
to the French ambassador at Rome. 



298 MODERN HISTORY. 

his administration of affairs, nor did the flame burst out again till the 
year 1,750, when, through the bigotry of the then archbishop of 
Paris, the clergy were encouraged to refuse extreme unction to all 
who should not produce confessional notes, signed by persons who 
adhered to the bull. 

3. It is easy to guess the confusion and deep distress, indeed, 
which so singular and intolerant a measure was likely to produce. 
The cause of the recusants and people in general, was, upon this 
occasion, strongly supported by the parliament of Paris, and other 

Sarliaments; and as in the preceding struggles the Jansenists had 
een thrown into prison, in this the magistrates made no scruple of 
committing all who refused to administer the sacrament to persons in 
their last moments. The Jesuits had again recourse to the king. 

4. The common course of proceeding, in all disputes and con- 
tentions between the king and his parliaments, had hitherto borne 
the stamp of the most perfect despotism. However bold, or how- 
ever respectful the remonstrances might be on the part of the lat- 
ter, they were not allowed to have the least effect against the de- 
termination of the court. If these judicial bodies became too re- 
fractory, banishment ensued of course, and not the slightest regard 
was paid to any arguments they might allege, nor any resistance 
they might offer, in support of the liberties of their fellow subjects. 

5. Things came to the usual crisis on the present occasion. All 
the chambers of parliament refused to register the letters patent by 
which they were commanded to suspend the prosecutions relative 
Vo the refusal of the sacraments. In the year 1,753, they were 
oanished, and much inconvenience arose from the interruption of 
business, and suspension of justice ; while the clergy, attached to 
the bull, made great boast of the victory thev had obtained, and 
endeavoured continually to strengthen themselves more and more 
against their adversaries. The king often wavered, but was as 
often brought back by the interposition of the pope and obstinate 
perseverance of the Jesuits; in 1,754, however, seizing the opportu- 
nity of the birth of a second son to the dauphin, (the duke of Ber< 
ry, afterwards Lewis XVI.,) he recalled the parliament, but with- 
out effecting peace. The members had been received at Paris 
with loud acclamations, and every demonstration of joy ; their 
conduct had rendered them popular to an extraordinary degree, so 
that when commanded afresh to register the king's edicts, they 
again refused. This bold act of disobedience subjected them to 
the last extremity of kingly authority. The sovereign repaired 
himself to the hall of parliament, November, 1,756, and in aW of 
justice (the term by which such assemblies were peculiarly desig- 
nated,) tinally ordered them to register the edicts in his n? me, which 
they could no longer, as the constitution then stood, refuse. Many, 
however, resigned their appointments, and much discontent prevailed 
amongst the people. It should be observed, that by this time the 
depositaries of the laws and advocates had begun to depart from 
their usual routine of technical formalities, and, animated by the ex- 
amples set them, to enter largely into the general questions of law 
and liberty, rights and obligations, duty and privilege ; they began, 
in short, systematically to take the part of the oppressed ; t.^ey were 
prepared, not only to remonstrate, but to argue, debate, and openly 
to protest against the violation of the rights of the people. 

6. The hand of a fanatic, in the year 1 ,757, appeared to have 
the effect of altering the king's mind once more. As hi? majesty 



MODERN HISTORY. 299 

was stepping into his carriage, he was stabbed by an assassin of 
the name of Damiens, his object being, according to his own confes- 
sion, not to kill, but to alarm his majesty, with a view of producing 
some change in the king's sentiments, that might dispose him to en 
join the administration of the sacraments to dying persons, without 
the confessional notes insisted upon ; but little reliance is to be placed 
on any declarations of this nature. In this instance they seemed 
not to agree with the conduct of the assassin. That Lewis acted as 
he did soon afterwards, with regard to the points in dispute, in conse- 
quence of this attempt on his life, is by no means certain ; but in a 
short time matters were accommodated with the parliament, and the 
archbishop of Paris, the chief fomenter of the disturbances on the 
part of the clergy, banished. 

7. It may not be unreasonable, perhaps, to date the commence- 
ment of the revolution that broke out nearly thirty years after- 
wards, from this period. Scarcely any thing could have contributed 
more to encourage the revolutionary principles already at work, 
than disputes which indicated such inveterate superstition and big- 
otry ; such determined opposition to all freedom of thought ; such 
sophistry and intrigue ; such submission to the court of Rome ; such 
contempt of the public opinion, as expressed, for want of any better 
constituted organ, in the remonstrances of the French parliament; 
such a disposition on the part of the court and clergy to uphold the 
arbitrary powers of the sovereign, and this at a moment when the 
private life of the monarch himself was in the highest degree profli- 
gate and abandoned, and the whole system of government a system 
of venality, favouritism, and public plunder. These imprudent and 
unwise proceedings, at such a time, gave a handle to the philosophers, 
cr literati, of the day, to take the reform of matters into their own 
hands, and by supplying them with such ample materials for the 
exercise of their wits, as well as their courage, laid the foundation 
for a revolution which (so extensive were the abuses of government) 
almost necessarily threw every thing into confusion, and in the end 
far outstepped the bounds of all sober and discreet reform. Bred up 
by the Jesuits themselves, and instructed in all the branches of 
worldly and polite knowledge, they were amply prepared to expose 
the weakness or wickedness of their masters, when ince the veil 
that shrouded their deceptions was by any accident removed. They 
stood ready to avail ^ themselves of any circumstances that might 
tend to render manifest the pride and obstinacy, hypocrisy and 
deceit, of an overbearing sect, who by their influence with the king, 
might at any time trample upon the liberties of the people. 

8. These philosophers, (for so they have been with too little dis- 
crimination called,) thus raised in the estimation of an oppressed 
people into the rank of champions of public freedom, were unfortu- 
nately, but probably through the artful designs of their instructers, 
little acquainted with the true principles of religion, however fa- 
miliar they might be with its abuses. In directing their attacks, 
therefore, against the Jesuits, they were rather anxious that their 
shafts should reach all the regular clergy, or monastic orders in 
general; nor were they at all careful how much religion itseli 
might suffer in the overthrow of its ministers. The enemies of the 
Jesuits in China, Portugal, Spain, and America, had been the 
Dominicans and Cordeliers. It was the aim of the philosophers, in 
crushing the Jesuits, to crush their rivals also ; they were there- 
fore as severe against the Dominicans as against the Jesuits: the 



SOO MODERN HISTORY. 

parliament only attacked the latter. However attached Lewis XV. 
might be to the Jesuits, as the defenders of the catholic religion, 
and kingly authority, he appears to have entertained a jealousy 
of them, as censors of his immoral course of life, and as more at- 
tached to his son the dauphin than to himself. He therefore be- 
came indifferent to the attacks making upon them : while his mis- 
tress, the marchioness of Pompadour, and his minister, the duke de 
Choiseul, in order to keep the king wholly in their own power, were 
ready to take part against the dauphin, the queen, the royal family, 
and the Jesuits themselves, of whom they were, for the reasons 
above stated, justly suspicious. The duke de Choiseul himself, in- 
deed, is said to have given the following account of his enmity to the 
order ; that being on an embassy at Rome, the general of the order 
frankly told him, that he knew, before he came, every thing that 
he had said about the society at Paris, and so convinced him that 
what he said was true, that he could not doubt but that, through 
some means or other, they were able to learn all that passed, not 
only in the cabinets of princes, but the interior of private houses, 
and that so dangerous a society ought not to subsist. It is proper to 
state this, in order to exonerate the duke from any suspicion of 
having sacrified them to the philosophers, whose irreligious princi- 
ples he is known latterly not to have approved. 

9. In the year 1,759 the Jesuits had been expelled from Portugal, 
on a charge of countenancing an attack on the king's life. Under 
these ciraamstances, it is not surprising that the enemies of the order 
at Paris should attempt to fix on them the charge of the late attack 
on Lewis XV., and to attribute to them regicide principles. Damiens 
himself seemed to have taken pains to leave the matter in extreme 
doubt. They already were sufficiently branded in the eyes of the 
public, as the friends and assertors of arbitrary power, and enemies 
to liberty. To relieve the sovereigns of Europe from the thraldom 
of a sect so powerful, so artful and dangerous, became a principle of 
action, which the public were well enough disposed to countenance, 
and an opportunity only was wanting to accomplish their ruin. 

10. This opportunity the Jesuits themselves provided for their 
enemies. Having endeavoured to escape from a demand made on 
them in consequence of some mercantile proceedings, in which one 
of their society was deeply involved, the tribunals to which the 
case was referred, having a handle given them by the pleadings 
of the Jesuits, very properly required to see the articles of their 
institution, hitnerto, that is, for more than two centuries, kept se- 
cret from all the world. The times were well fitted for such a 
discovery. All men of wit and understanding, however unprinci- 
pled themselves, were well prepared to detect and expose the vul- 
nerable parts of their great charter or institute, (for so it was 
called) and to lay open to the world at large the peculiar arts and 
contrivances, by which they were systematically instructed jto ac- 
quire an absolute dominion over the minds and consciences of men. 
The mysterious volume was found to contain sufficient to convict 
them of such bad principles, with regard both to civil government 
and morality, that, though the king hesitated at first to pass sen- 
tence on them, being almost as much afraid of their rivals and op- 
ponents, the Jansenists, the parliament, and the philosophers, as of 
themselves; yet, at length, August 6, 1,762, he was prevailed upon 
to issue a decree, by which they were secularized, and their posses- 
sions ordered to be sold, which was speedily, and with very few 



MODERN HISTORY. 30 i 

exceptions, carried into execution in all parts of the kingdom. 
Efforts indeed were made to save them, as being essentially necessa- 
ry to combat the attacks ol the new philosophy, and to check the 
progress of deism and atheism ; as heretofore they had interposed to 
confound schismatics and heretics ; both the altar and the throne, it 
was alleged, needed their services now more than ever; but all 
these movements in their favour were in vain. The duke de 
Choiseul and the marchioness of Pompadour had the influence to 
procure an edict from the king for the actual abolition of the order 
»n France, which was issued in November, 1,764, and other courts 
$i Europe judged it wise to take the same steps. Spain and Portu- 
gal having at this time ministers, whose principles and politics much 
resembled those of the duke de Choiseul ; the count d'Aranda, and 
the marquis de Pombal ; the Jesuits were expelled from Spain, 
Naples, and Sicily, from Mexico, Peru, and Paraguay, in the course 
of one and the same year, 1 ,767. 

11. The fate of the Jesuits was no sooner decided, than the par- 
liaments, elated by the downfal of their great opponents, began to at- 
tack the arbitrary power of the king. The profligate life of the 
latter had withdrawn him too much from the cares of government, 
and opened the door to abuses in almost every department of admin- 
istration ; but while the parliaments were thus engaged, some very 
extraordinary processes at law, particularly the case of the Calm 
family at Thoulouse, of Labarre at Abbeville, and of the celebrated 
Lally, commander in India, in which shocking instances of fanaticism 
and oppression occurred, turned the eyes of the philosophers, with 
Voltaire at their head, to the defects of the French jurisprudence, and 
excited a strong feeling against both the taws of France, and the 
administrators of them. 

12. The nation had sustained a considerable loss in the death ot 
the dauphin, who, though a favourer of the Jesuits to a certain ex- 
tent, exhibited a character so different from that of his father in 
many most essential points, as to render him very justly popular : his 
highness died at the age of 36, in the year 1,765 ; his wife, a prin- 
cess of the house of Saxony, surviving him only fifteen months. In 
1,770, through the agency of the duke de Choiseul, a new connex- 
ion took place between the courts of Vienna and Versailles, by the 
marriage of the young dauphin, afterwards Lewis XVI., with the 
daughter of the empress dowager, the archduchess Marie Antoi 
aetle ; an union attended with such costly and splendid festivities at 
me time, as must excite, in every sensible mind, the most awful re- 
flections on the dismal events which are now known to have clouded 
is latter days. 

13. The marriage of the dauphin took place at a time when the 
differences between the king and his parliament had arisen to the 
greatest height. In the course of the years 1,770 and 1,771, the 
king held several beds of justice, but without at all subduing the 
spirit which had been raised against his edicts, and which the minis- 
ter, in opposition to the chancellor, is supposed to have encouraged 
a new parliament, and six councils, on the suggestion of the latter, 
were proposed to be constituted, to supply the place of the refracto- 
ry members, who were banished ; but this measure was opposed, 
not only by the regular parliaments, but by the princes of the blood, 
and several even of the very persons nominated to form and preside 
in the new assemblies. Several provincial parliaments, as well as 



302 MODERN HISTORY. 

that of Paris, were suppressed, and as many as seven hundred magis- 
trates exiled or confined. 

14. The year 1,774 terminated the life and reign of Lewis XV. ; 
he died in the 65th year of his age, having reigned 58. The latter 
part of his life was highly disgraceful in a private point of view, and 
utterly feeble in a public one ; nor was his death at all regretted. 
He was succeeded by his grandson Lewis XV 7 I., who had lost an 
elder brother in the year 1,761, his father in 1,765, and his mother 
in 1,767; strange mortality in one family, and too much resembling 
the losses in that of Lewis XIV., (see Sect. I.,) then imputed to 
poison ; a charge revived upon this occasion, but probably entirely 
without foundation. 

15. At the very commencement of his reign, but not without some 
sacrifice of his private feelings and opinions, Lewis XVI. complied 
with the general wish of having the old parliaments restored, and 
the new councils formed by the chancellor Maupeou, dissolved ; a 
measure which seemed to diffuse an almost universal joy throughout 
the capital and provinces. The king had taken into his service two 
ministers of a disposition favourable to the wishes of the people ; 
'he venerable count de Maurepas, and M. Turgot. In conjunction 
with these ministers, Lewis was undoubtedly disposed to reform 
abuses, and promote the happiness of his people ; but unfortunately 
the state of France, if not of the world in general, precluded all 
hope of any gradual and temperate change. 

16. The American contest had commenced ; a declaration of right? 
had appeared there, exceedingly well calculated to open the eyes 
of those who had not yet seen, and to encourage the revolutionary 
movements of those Who had been able to detect, and were prepared 
to expose, the great abuses subsisting in the French government; al- 
ready had the philosophers successfully attacked the Jesuits; aimed 
some severe blows at the monaslic orders in general, as well as at the 
court of Rome, which had supported and abetted them in every at- 
tempt to uphold the papal and royal authority, and to stifle the com* 
plaints of the people. The tyranny thus inveighed against and at- 
tacked, had incited an opposition, much more likely to promote 
licentiousness than assist the cause of real and genuine liberty. The 
errors of Catholicism, upheld by a bigoted and infatuated clergy, at 
variance with the only assemblies in the nation capable of any con- 
stitutional remonstrance, however ineffectual, naturally hurried the 
wits and freethinkers of that lively nation into extremes which every 
sober minded man could not iliil to lament; in a very short course of 
time, from railing at the regular clergy, they proceeded to rail at 
religion, and even atheism was propagated in a way that bespoke a 
dreadful disregard of all principles of religion, common honesty, and 
honour; in works purporting to have been written by very respect- 
able persons, deceased, Avho had holden, when alive, opinions diamet- 
rically opposite to those that were thus stamped with their names. 
These were among some of the most dreadful forerunners of a rev 
olulion, which, had it been properly managed, had it fallen into the 
hands of persons better prepared to act upon the true principles of 
religion and ordeily government, considering the progress of knowl 
edge and the powerful impulse which the human mind had received, 
was not unseasonable in point of time and circumstances. 

17. It would be absurd, however, to deny the abilities of many of 
the persons who now stood forwnrd to stem the torrent of abuses, 
and vindicate the rights of the people ; several of them had wit,' 



MODERN HISTORY. SOS 

and learning, and science, at command, to the highest degree ; some 
of them had a lively sense of liberty, but they had been ill-taught 
on the subjects of religion and morality ; they had read Locke, with- 
out imbibing Locke's best principles ; they had confounded the 
abuses of Christianity with Christianity itself; they were witty and 
ingenious, but not comparable in wisdom and conduct with their con- 
temporaries in Scotland, or in England; the latter were the truest 
friends to Jiberty, the best philosophers, and the best politicians, as 
their writings show. The celebrated Encyclopaedia, which first ap- 
peared in 1,751, had supplied an opportunity for all the literati of 
Prance to express their most private sentiments on government, 
political economy, and the management of the finances. Amongst 
these the economists bore a conspicuous part; their whole system, 
when rightly understood, being one of liberty, whether it regarded 
personal rights, the free application of industry, or the exportation 
of corn. The author to the Introduction to the Encyclopaedia, M. 
d'Alembert, was a man of considerable talents, but a deist in principle ; 
his coadjutor, Diderot, an atheist. 

18. The ministry of Turgot, while it lasted, was rather calculated 
to give encouragement to the French reformers ; his own views 
were undoubtedly liberal and patriotic, and he had a master sincere- 
ly disposed, in all likelihood, to further any practicable plan of 
reform, but the course of the minister was too precipitate ; his views 
extended to too many objects, and were such as admitted not of any 
speedy accomplishment ; they were too mighty for the grasp of any 
one man ; they only excited the animosity of the privileged orders, 
•md drove them into measures of defence, more calculated to worj* 
their own overthrow than conciliate their enemies. The advocates 
of ancient abuses and unreasonable customs, they treated their op 
ponents with an ill-judged contempt, and by resisting all amelioration 
of the present order of things, laid the foundation for a thousand 
impracticable systems and extravagant theories, new constitutions 
and schemes of government, which being severally proposed, tried, 
and rejected, in rapid succession, at last involved every thing in con- 
fusion, anarchy, and ruin. 

19. While the seeds of revolution, if not of republicanism, plen- 
tifully sown, were beginning to germinate in France, in America the 
people were already acting upon the very principle of resistance to 
an alleged tyranny. It required only to bring the two countries, by 
some means or other, into contact, to spread the contagion, and 
revolutionize both nations as the different circumstances and charac- 
ters of the people should severally determine. At the beginning of 
the year 1,778, a formal alliance was negotiated between the court 
of Versailles and the revolutionary government of America; but 
long before that, in the year 1,774, the American declaration of 
lights, on which their opposition to the English government rested, 
was received in France-, as a kind of practical application of the 
theoretical schemes of the French philosophers, and might reasona- 
bly have alarmed all the courts of Europe ; though the contrary 
was the fact. France and Spain sent help, and Prussia approved the 
American proceedings, not so much out of friendship towards the 
Americans, as of blind hostility to Great Britain. The king of France 
is said to have foreseen the ill consequences of such a war, but to 
have weakly given way to contrary advice. 

20. The speeches of opposition, in the mean time, in the two Eng- 
lish houses of parliament, greatly interested the people on the conti- 



304 MODERN HISTORY, 

nent; the crowned heads, indeed, took little notice of the warning, 
whilst the subjects were listening attentively to the lessons of liberty 
promulgated by Chatham, Fox, and Burke. Unfortunately, the court 
of Versailles, at this very time, with the exception of the king, who 
was inclined to economy, fell into the utmost extravagancies of 
luxury, gayety, and dissipation ; drew largely, and without any con- 
sideration, on the public treasury, though the finances were in a 
most depressed state; invented all kinds of novelties, and seemed 
bent upon exchanging the forms and etiquette of a court for trilling 
though expensive amusements, not omitting such as promoted and 
encouraged the spirit of gambling. 

21. While these things were going on at court, and too much 
Countenanced, it is to be feared, by the queen, she received a visit 
from her eccentric brother, the emperor Joseph the second, which 
had, or appeared to have, an extraordinary effect on the Parisians ; 
being so timed as to fall in with the new notions that had been 
adopted, of manly simplicity, and a republican severity of manners. 
The incognito he preserved, he carried so far as to dismiss, in a very 
striking manner, all the glare and pomp of royalty ; the frankness 
of his manners, unostentatious and frugal mode of life, led the French 
more particularly to notice, and to condemn more severely, the 
thoughtless luxury and dissipation of their own court and princes. 

22. The king had a hard and cruel task upon his hands ; he found 
it impossible to check a course of extravagance and levity in his 
own family, which he could not, and, in fact, did not approve ; in his 
choice of ministers, he was sure to offend one party or the other ; 
thus, when in 1,776, on the dismission of M. Turgot, he first appoint- 
ed the celebrated M. Necker, of Geneva, to the high office of su- 
preme director of the finances, the privileged orders took the 
alarm ; they thought^ they saw in the citizen of a republic, and a 
protestant, a decided friend to the liberal ideas that were afloat to 
their prejudice, and the enemy and corrector of all abuses of power 
and place. When, on the removal of M. Necker, the management 
of the finances was delivered into other hands, the people complain 
ed that their friend and favourite had been sacrificed, to intrigue and 
cabal, and that he had been checked and supplanted, at a moment 
when he was chalking out a system of reform, highly beneficial to 
the state, and favourable to their best interests. 

23. In 1,783, M. de Calonne undertook to restore order to the 
finances, and his measures were exactly such as were calculated to 
oring matters to a crisis, and hasten the revolution which had for a 
long time been impending. Inclined to favour the luxury and prod- 
igality of the court, and at the same time to provide for the deficien- 
cies in the revenue, he boldly attacked the privileged orders, by 
proposing, as the best impost he could devise, a general land tax 
fairly adjusted, and from which there should be no exemption. To 
carry this great point into execution, being no favourite with the 
parliament, he recommended the convocation of the assembly of the 
notables ; (a name given to a former meeting of select and distin- 
guished persons, in the year 1,626.) To this advice the king assent- 
ed, doubtless with the best intentions, though many about the court 
pretended, even at that time, to foresee in this measure the downfal 
of the monarchy, and the ruin of the minister who had proposed it. 
The king gave his consent, December 1,786, and in February 1,787 
this extraordinary assembly met. The minister had undoubtedly act- 
ed constitutionally in calling it, however rashly in regard to his own 



MODERN HISTORY. S05 

interests, and the king has been supposed to have imbibed from his 
father a strong inclination to consult such public and national councils. 
In this instance, however, both the crown and the minister were de- 
ceived; the latter, who expected to be allowed to lay his plans 
before them in the way of commands to be obeyed, was soon dis- 

E laced, on the remonstrances and demand of the very assembly he 
ad ventured to call together ; and though it did some good in the 
way of regulation and reform, during the short period of its sitting, 
which was only till the 25th of May, 1,787, it was fir from answer- 
ing the purposes for which it had been convoked. The members ot 
it, however, had acquired information hitherto withheld from the 
public, and imbibed principles friendly to liberty. 

24. On the dismission of M. de Calonne, his successor, the 
archbishop of Thoulouse, by an arbitrary and inconsiderate be- 
haviour, involved his sovereign in another unpleasant contest with 
the parliament, who, in a moment of irritation, called ibr a meet- 
ing of the states-general. The credit and power of the parliaments 
had hitherto been chiefly owing to the disuse of these national 
councils, so that if it had been proposed with any sincere desire of 
redressing grievances, and resisting oppression, the members with 
whom it originated would have deserved the credit of patriotism ; 
but. probably they were swayed by motives less pure. The king, 
however, consented to their convocation in 1,792, but in the mean 
time had many unpleasant altercations with the parliament, and 
on one occasion was treated with so little ceremony, or rather such 
indignity, as it was thought, by the due d'Orleans, as to occasion his 
banishment. 

25. The minister, in order to break or reduce the power of par- 
liament, thus openly at variance with him, and to get rid of the 
younger members, whose refractory spirit was but too apparent, 
projected the appointment of a cour plenicre, consisting of persons 
selected by the king from the principal nobility, professions and 
officers of state. The court was formed, and sat long enough to 
enforce the ministerial decrees, but amidst such murmuring and 
confusion, such violent remonstrances and objections, attended with 
popular commotions in the capital and provinces, that in a short 
time the scheme was abandoned, and the minister announced to the 
public the king's intention of convoking the states-general in the 
year ensuing ; he was then dismissed from his high oflice, and, to 
the great joy of the parliament and people, M. JNTecker was recalled. 

26. The royal word had been pledge for the summoning the 
states-general in 1,789; and it was soon found to be a promise, 
which, though the chief management of the finances had passed 
into other and more popular hands, could not easily be abandoned. 
They had not been assembled since the year 1,614, and difficulties 
therefore were started as to the best mode of arranging them ; the 
king even condescended to refer the matter to the decision of all 
the corporate and learned bodies of the realm ; an extraordinary step 
to take, but favoured by the minister, who had it in view to give con- 
sequence to the third estate, or commonalty, in order to counter- 
calance the too great influence of the privileged orders. 

27. This popular design of the minister, besides alarming the 
clergy and nobility, did not meet with the readv concurrence of 
the parliament; and it was even proposed, by M." d'Espresmesnil, 
a member who had incurred both banishment and imprisonment in 
the course of his opposition to the court, to adopt at once the plan ot 

Cc2 39 



S06 MODERN HISTORY. 

1,614; a proposal to which the parliament acceded; but it had the 
effect of rendering them immediately as unpopular as the privi- 
leged orders. The claims of the third estate met with the support 
of a large majority of the people, as might naturally have been 
expected at such a moment; the commons of 1,788 were very dif- 
ferent from those who were first summoned to meet in 1,302, upon 
a plan which had continued to 1,614. It was reasonable to adopt 
new forms ; and it was therefore strongly insisted that they should, 
upon this occasion, in order to be upon a par with the other orders, 
have a double representation, and deliberate together. Had the plan 
of the states-general of 1,614 been adopted, the parliament would 
have appeared there with much greater eclat than in any new ar- 
rangement; this may account for the part they took upon this occa 
sion. They entirely expected, in demanding the convocation of the 
states, that they should have the chief place in that assembly, and 
continue to enjoy the coniidence of the people. 

28. Such was the state of things at this memorable period ; an 
infatuation the most surprising seemed to hurry on the privileged 
orders to their ruin and destruction, and with them the monarchy. 
Instead of bending in any manner to the force of popular opinion, 
or acknowledging the justice of the claims made on them, as a fa- 
voured class, they more strongly than ever stood upon their privi- 
leges, and appeared to treat with contempt that powerful and now 
enlightened majority that was opposed to them ; they insisted more 
than ever upon their feudal rights, after the whole system had been 
virtually abolished. Conduct of this kind could not fail to stimulate 
the other party to deeds of violence and retaliation, in which the 
authority of the established laws and customs came soon to be to- 
tally disregarded, and every thing seemed to tend to ruin and dev- 
astation ; when the election of the states-general was appointed to 
take place, both sides exerted themselves with the utmost zeal and 
anxiety, but the result was found to be highly favourable to the 
democratic party. 

29. Great changes had already taken place in the character and 
manners of the Parisians. Since the American war, a strong dispo- 
sition had been shown to imitate the English, in dress, manners, 
amusements, and freedom of speech ; the respect which had former- 
ly prevailed for high birth and rank was every day diminishing ; 
persons of all classes were beginning to be raised to situations of dis- 
tinction and confidence; and some of the great themselves, instead 
of maintaining the distance preserved by their ancestors, made ap- 
proaches towards the lower ranks, by intermarriages, and the open 
and general encouragement of literature, trade, commerce, and 
agriculture ; even the females began to discuss questions of state, to 
express a lively and sentimental concern for all oppressed persons or 
nations, and to wish that all the young men who could speak elo- 
quently upon these subjects in their private assemblies, should have, 
=is in England, a field opened to ihem for the more public display of 
their talents and abilities. It is not to be wondered that, under these 
circumstances, every eye should be fixed on the meeting of that 
great national council, whose powers had not been called into action 
for the long space of nearly two centuries. 



MODERN HISTORY. 807 



SECTION X. 



AUSTRIA, FROM THE CONCLUSION OF THE SEVEN YEARS' 
WAR TO THE DEATH OF MARIA THERESA, 1,763—1,780. 

1. With regard to Austria, the seven years' war terminated with 
the peace of Hubertshurg, which was signed on the 5th of Febru- 
ary, 1,763, (see Sect. VI.) and on the 27th of May, 1,764, as the 
fruits of that peace, the empress was gratified with the election of 
her son Joseph to the dignity of king of the Romans ; a point of 
great importance to her, considering the circumstances that had re- 
tarded the elevation of her roval consort to the imperial throne. 
The election was most opportune, for the emperor Francis survived 
it but a very short time, being struck with a fit of apoplexy in the 
month of August of the same year, while attending the nuptials ot 
his second son at Inspruck, in the Tyrol. Francis had borne his fac- 
ulties meekly, resigning to his imperial consort the cares, as well as 
the state and parade of government, which, indeed, more regularly 
appertained to her than to himself; he obviously withdrew from 
the authority that seemed to have devolved to him ; and if he occu- 
pied himself at all with the affairs of government, it was rather to 
supply its pecuniary demands from his Tuscan treasury, than for any 
other purposes; not so much in the way of gain, as of regular busi- 
ness and prudential management. Of the high estimation in which' 
he was held by the empress there can be little doubt ; her affection 
for him had a romantic cast, and seemed founded on what so seldom 
occurs, or can be expected to occur in royal marriages, an early, 
fixed, and solid attachment. 

2. Her majesty employed herself, from the conclusion of the 
treaty of Hubertshurg, in ameliorating in every way possible the 
condition of her country ; in founding philosophical academies, re- 
forming the schools, encouraging by premiums the manufactures, 
and in restraining several feudal abuses: she had the opportunity 
afforded her of contributing to the introduction of the variolous inocu- 
lation into her dominions. She interfered, and in a very judicious 
manner, in the regulations regarding monasteries and nunneries, abol- 
ished the dangerous privilege of asylum, the horrible excesses of 
the inquisition, and the inhuman judicial process of torture. She 
also suppressed the society of Jesuits. 

3. Considering the extreme repugnance Maria Theresa had 
shown to the dismemberment of her own domains on the oeath of 
her father, it must seem greatly to redound to her discredit that she 
could have become a party to the partition of Poland : but it may 
very fairly be inferred that' she was driven into it. Being unable to 
serve the cause of Saxony she had no other alternative against the 
combination of Russia, Prussia, and the Porte, than to claim a part : 
though it is almost proved that she was drawn in by Prussia to par- 
take ot the plunder, that she might also share the odium excited by 
it. After the partition indeed began to have effect, and was sanction- 
ed by the Polish delegates nominated for that purpose, Maria 
Theresa appears to have had no scruples in extending her encroach- 
ments, and supporting Prussia in the same attempts, to such a degiee 
even as to provoke the interposition of Russia. It was not till the 



308 MODERN HISTORY. 

year 1,777 that all the three parties were satisfied, and brought to 
an agreement in regard to limits ; the portion assigned to Austria 
being decidedly the greatest in extent. In the same year the em- 
press queen, by a convention, signed on the 5th day of February, 
obtained possession of the Buccovina, ceded to her by the Porte. 
Her situation was at this period particularly flourishing, her army 
numerous and well disciplined, her finances in good order, and her 
alliance with France cemented by many marriages with the Bourbon 
princes ; but after the partition of Poland, and the connexion the 
empress queen seemed thus to have formed with Russia and Prussia, 
an anti-Austrian party sprang up at the court of Versailles, who 
persuaded the king to renew his connexions with Prussia, in order 
to secure some check against the augmentation of the power of 
Austria ; this, however, was done without violating subsisting trea- 
ties, or breaking friendship with Maria Theresa. Lewis XVI. was 
much more jealous of the son than of the mother, and not without 
reason ; the views of the former being evidently ambitious and em 
croaching, and highly anti-gallican. 

4 In December, 1,777, on the death of the elector of Bavaria, 
both the emperor and empress queen laid claim to his dominions as 
fiefs or allodials, properly descending or reverting to one or other 
of them, having previously taken steps to arrange matters with their 
more immediate competitor, the elector Palatine ; and relying 
strongly on the support of France, as well as on the age and infirmi- 
ties of the king of Prussia : but the latter found means to interpose, 
by stimulating the duke of Deux Fonts, presumptive heir to the 
elector Palatine, to appeal to himself and the king of France against 
the dismemberment of the Bavarian territories, referring, in confir- 
mation of his rights, to the treaty of Pavia, confirmed by the Golden 
Bull, and the treaty of Westphalia ; all these authorities were disput- 
ed on the part of the emperor and empress, who insisted on the 
validity and legality of the arrangements made with the elector 
Palatine. The emperor in the mean while offered to submit his 
own claims to the judgment of the diet, and to mediate between his 
mother and the other claimants : preparations, nevertheless, were 
made for deciding the matter by arms, and both the emperor and 
king of Prussia took the field at the head of their respective forces ; 
but the empress queen, fearing for her son, made many overtures of 
peace, sought the mediation of Russia and France, and, though con- 
tinually thwarted by the emperor, who was inclined to war, and un 
willing to sul mit to the dictates of foreign powers, succeeded in re- 
storing tranquillity, by the treaty of Teschen, 1,779. By this treaty 
many arrangements were entered into to satisfy the king of Prussia, 
the elector Palatine, the duke of Deux Ponts, and the elector of 
Saxony. And Austria acquired territory, though of no great extent, 
very important in point of situation. She obtained from Bavaria the 
circle ot Burghausen, which opened a passage to the Tyrol, anc 
was not compelled absolutely to renounce any of her claims though 
she found means to forego with credit the further prosecution of 
them. 

France had done enough during these disputes about Bavaria, tf 
give umbrage to the court of Vienna ; she had secretly opposed thfc 
dismemberment of the electorate, she had not supplied the succours 
she was required to do according to the treaty of Versailles, and she 
had manifested a distrust of the emperor, bordering upon contempt 
This conduct had the eflect of throwing the latter into the arms of 



MODERN HISTORY. 309 

England and Russia ; in the contest with America, J oseph espoused 
the cause of England, pronounced it to be the cause of all sovereigns, 
and prohibited ail intercourse between the subjects of the empire 
and the revolted colonies. With regard to Russia he took a more 
active part; he visited Catherine on her celebrated journey to the 
Crimea, and at Petersburg ingratiated himself with her to an ex- 
traordinary degree, alienated her from the old king of Prussia, and in 
so doing procured her assistance in promoting the advancement of 
his brother the archduke Maximilian to the coadjutorship of Cologne 
and Munster, the last wish of Maria Theresa, who had thus, in an 
extraordinary manner, found the means to provide, before her death, 
for all her numerous family. But her end was approaching: in 
November, 1,780, she was seized with an illness, which terminated 
her existence ; her last days were passed in acts of devotion and atten- 
tions to her son, the emperor, and others of her family, particularly 
striking and grand. She displayed at this awful moment a powerful 
mind, a warm heart, and a truly christian fortitude : she died No- 
vember 29, 1,780, in the 64th year of her age, and 41st of her 
reign. She was not exempt from weaknesses, but her virtues, 
both public and private, greatly preponderated ; the former were of 
the most splendid cast, the latter altogether as amiable. Nine out of 
sixteen children survived her. 

Joseph, who succeeded her; Leopold, great duke of Tuscany; 
Ferdinand, governor of Austrian Lombardy and duke of Modern* 
by reversion ; Maximilian, coadjutor of Cologne and Munster ; Mary 
Anne, abbess of Prague ; Mary Christina, wife of Albert, duke ot 
Saxony ; Maria Elizabeth, abbess of Inspruck ; Maria Amelia, duches? 
of Parma ; Caroline, queen of Naples ; Maria Antoinetta, queen of 
France. 



SECTION XI. 
REIGNS OF JOSEPH II., LEOPOLD II., &c, FROM 1,765 TO 1,800. 

1. On the demise of his father, Francis I., Joseph, who had been 
elected king of the Romans in 1,764, ascended the imperial throne, 
at the age of twenty-four, in the year 1,765, his mother being still 
living. It was soon apparent that he projected great; changes, and 
the reformation of many abuses, but in pursuing these purposes he 
was undoubtedly too precipitate and too adventurous ; his educa- 
tion had not been such as to fit him for such high attempts. It was 
impossible to unite in the way he proposed such scattered domin- 
ions; it was impossible to carry into execution all the schemes he 
had invented for the consolidation and improvement of the empire. 
In the Belgic provinces, in particular, he rendered himself extreme- 
ly unpopular by the violence of his proceedings, but this was not 
til! after his mother's death ; as long as she lived she sedulously en- 
deavoured to restrain the impetuosity and warlike disposition of her 
son, apprehending that he had many enemies at hand, and that not- 
withstanding the pretended courtesy of the king of Prussia, mani- 
fested in private interviews as well as public negotiations, he could 
not have much chance of success in coping with so able, powerful, 
and experienced an opponent ; in this, perhaps, she showed some 
sense, though it has been doubled whether she did not too much 
control the ardent spirit of her son. The empress queen dying in 



310 MODERN HISTORY. 

the year 1,780, Joseph was left to the pursuit of his own whims and 
projects, in many instances most extravagant, in almost all oppressive. 
For though there was an appearance of liberality, and much show of 
good, he evidently seemed to consult nothing but his own arbitrary 
will. 

2. Had his education been such as to enable him to form a right 
judgment of things, had not his genius been cramped, and nis rea- 
son perverted, by a choice of tutors and preceptors peculiarly ill 
qualified to fit him for the arduous and conspicuous station to which 
he had been elevated by the circumstances of his birth and con- 
nexions, he might certainly have done great good, and actually 
ameliorated the condition of a large and most interesting portion 
of the human race, for his manners were such as to have led him 
to a just knowledge of their wants, and a proper sense of their 
claims upon society. He travelled through Europe, as if he were 
bent on seeing the real condition of his fellow-creatures, in all ranks 
and situations of life ; discarding all pomp and parade, he sought the 
society and conversation of persons far below him, and encouraged 
every one to give him information uj>on subjects most nearly touch- 
ing their interests. Since Peter I. cf Russia, no monarch had taken 
such pains to procure information, and survey every thing with his 
own eyes. 

3. The whole extent of his dominions was supposed to contain 
a population of 24,000,000, distinguished however by p. great va- 
riety of laws, customs, religious opinions, and language ; the lower 
orders subject to many restrictions, attaching to the state of vas- 
salage in which they were still held by their feudal lord and su- 
periors. The Roman catholic religion chiefly prevailed ; the cier- 
gy were wealthy, and possessed great influence. Maria Theresa 
ha j perceived what was wrong, and had shown an excellent dis- 
position to amend matters, but had partly been compelled by cir- 
cumstances, and swayed by prudence, to proceed moderately and 
gradually. Joseph was more impetuous; he was so eager to break 
down all distinctions, that, among other regulations, he insisted 
on having but one language for the whole empire, though no less 
than ten principal languages were spoken at that time, and in 
common use. Within the confines of his dominions, all his other 
projects were of the same description, whether good or bad, ex- 
ceedingly too hasty ; he broke up old systems before he was well 
prepared to establish new ones, and in the interval, necessarily 
occasioned such confusion, disgust, and trouble, as to hinder every 
good effect, and thwart his own purposes; in all his regulations he 
seemed bent upon upholding his own imperial power, not only by 
emitting to introduce any new checks upon it, but even abolishing 
old ones ; he particularly displeased his Hungarian subjects, those 
faithful adherents of his mother, by interfering with their laws and 
customs, and offending some of their fondest prejudices. 

4. Though attached to the Roman catholic religion, he showed 
great disregard of the papal authority, by subjecting the monas- 
teries to episcopal jurisdiction, suppressing many, and reducing the 
numbers, both of monks and nuns, in all that 'were permitted to 
continue, with great wan< of feeling ; he omitted to make any pro- 
vision for those who were discharged ; he broke through many su- 
perstitions, not rightly judging how deeply they were interwoven 
with the religious feelings of the people, and how much the latter 
therefore were likely to be affected by such violence and haste • 



MODERN HISTORY. 311 

he abolished the privileges of primogeniture, declared marriage 
(heretofore regarded as a sacrament) to be only a civil contract, 
and rendered bastards capable of inheriting. The wisest and most 
truiy liberal of all his innovations was that which, by a public edict, 
dated October 31, 1,781, established a general toleration for all the 
*Jcal!iolici^ or dissenters from the Romish religion. This and other 
measures of interference with ecclesiastical matters so disturbed and 
alarmed pope Pius VI., as to induce him to take a journey to Vienna, 
personally to remonstrate with the emperor. His plan was opposed 
at Rome, and entirely discouraged by the Austrian ministry; but his 
holiness persisted, and, after a visit of much form and ceremony, re- 
turned in about a month, without effecting any change in the senti- 
ments or proceedings of Joseph. 

5. In the same precipitate manner, as in other instances, he sud- 
denly abolished feudal vassalage, without any suitable arrangements 
for the relief of those who must evidently suffer by such an impor- 
tant change of tenure ; and while he prided himself upon putting an 
end to slavery, he subjected the emancipated to such arbitrary im- 
posts of his own invention, as plainly to convince them that they had 
not in reality recovered their freedom. To countervail these errors 
in legislation and government, he certainly showed great merit in 
the encouragement he gave to arts, letters, trade, and manufactures; 
in founding numerous schools and universities, public libraries, labor- 
atories and observatories ■ in improving the public roads, making 
canals, and establishing free ports. In 1,784, he obtained permission 
from the Forte to navigate the Turkish seas, which seemed to afford 
excellent^ means to his Hungarian subjects, who were otherwise ill 
situated for trade, to carry on an extensive commerce by way o. 
the Danube ; war, however, soon interrupted this accommodation ; in 
1,787 it came to an end. 

6. In 1,781, Joseph, having concerted his plans with France, who 
had altered hei measures towards him, probably for the very pur- 
pose, determined to break through the barrier treaty* imposed 
upon Austria when the Netherlands were transferred to Charles VI., 
and which, though undoubtedly affording security to Austria itself 
against the French, must be allowed to have constantly carried in 
it something galling to the feelings of the imperial court, as entirely 
dictated by the maritime powers. The fortifications of the barrier 
towns had now fallen into decay, and the connexion which had 
for some time subsisted between the courts of Versailles and Vien- 
na, seemed to afford the emperor plausible grounds for declining to 
pay for the military protection of a frontier no longer likely to be 
disturbed. He therefore directed all the fortifications in the Nether- 
lands to be done away, except those of Luxemburgh, Ostend, jVamur^ 
and Antwerp ; while the Dutch, who had been desired to withdraw 
their garrisons, as no longer necessary, or entitled to pay, judged it 
wise to comply. 

7. This violation of the barrier treaty, complied with in the last 
instance so easily by the united provinces, was quickly^ followed 
by fresh demands on the latter power, under pretence of more ac- 
curately adjusting the boundaries of the Dutc'a and Austrian Neth- 
erlands. The cession of the city of Maestricht and the contigu- 
ous district of Outer Me use being among other things insisted 
apon. At length, however, and about the year 1,784, these claims 

* See Coxe iv. 152, 153, &c 



312 MODERN HISTORY. 

all seemed to merge in one sweeping demand, to have the full and 
free navigation of the river Scheld, tor the purposes of establishing, 
in favour of his Flemish subjects, a direct trade with the East In- 
dies, and of restoring the city of Antwerp, once the emporium ot 
Europe, to its proper degree of splendour and importance ; a proj- 
ect, which, if it could have been accomplished without interfering 
with so many foreign interests, and the manifest violation of suo- 
sisting treaties, may be said to have reflected no disgrace on the 
policy, wisdom, or paternal care of the emperor ; but it was impos- 
sible to expect that such changes should be allowed to proceed 
without great opposition. It was soon discovered that both France 
and Prussia were prepared to support the Dutch against him, and 
though the empress of Russia had endeavoured to deter the latter 
from aiding the Hollanders, the project was laid aside, and Joseph, 
instead of his views on the Scheld, resumed some of his former de- 
mands. In the end, however, every thing was compromised by 
money, through the mediation of the French king, or rather in con- 
formity to the dictates of the French minister. 

8. Another ooject which the emperor attempted almost at the 
same time, but equally without effect, was the exchange of the 
Netherlands for Bavaria. He had taught his mother to covet the 
latter countr} 7 - and its acquisition would undoubtedly have render- 
ed his dominions more compact, and given him a continued line of 
territory, from the frontier of Turkey to the Mediterranean sea, 
while it might have relieved him from the charge of a more distant 
portion of his dominions, held by a very uncertain and troublesome 
tenure. Joseph had calculated upon overcoming all the difficul- 
ties that might arise from foreign powers ; had secured the consent 
of Russia, and even negotiated the proposed exchange with the 
elector of Bavaria, (who, if it took place, was to be made king of 
Austrasia or Burgunay.) But Frederic II., at the age of seventy- 
ibur, again interposed : and, by forming with the several princes and 
states of the empire what was called the Germanic union, for main- 
taining the integrity and indivisibility of the Germanic body in gen- 
eral, effectually prevented the exchange so much desired. The 
principal parties to the union, which was settled and confirmed, Juiy 
1,785, were, besides the king of Prussia, the electors of Hanovei-j 
Saxony, and Mentz, the margrave of Anspach, and the duke ot 
Deux Ponts. The whole scheme, indeed, was found to be so im- 
practicable, that the emperor and elector judged it prudent to deny 
that any convention to that effect had taken place between them. 

9. In 1,788, Joseph incurred considerable disgrace, by his attacks 
upon Turkey. He had projected, in conjunction with the empress 
of Russia, w*hom he had flattered by a visit to the Crimea, the total 
dismemberment of that empire ; but blunder upon blunder defeated 
his purposes, and he retired from the contest blamed by ail parties. 
In 1,789, however, hostilities were renewed, and in the battle of 
Rimnik, which took place in the month of September, the combined 
forces of Russia and Austria gained an important victory over the 
Turks, under the command of the grand vizbr. The capture of 
Belgrade soon after, by the army of Loudon, completed their 
triumphs : but their success occasioned jealousies, which effectually 
interrupted the career of victory. England, Holland, and Prussia, 
began to be alarmed at the increasing power of Russia and Austria: 
and. by fomenting the troubles in the Netherlands, drew the atten- 
tion of Joseph from his intended encroachments on Turkey. 



MODERN HISTORY. 313 

10. In no part of his dominions were his attempts at reformation 
worse received, or worse managed, than in the Netherlands. Di- 
vided into many provinces, and each province governed by distinct 
laws, customs, and regulations; some secured by charter, in the 
enjoyment of important privileges and immunities, nothing could 
possibly have been thought of more vexatious than that of redu- 
cing them all under one system of administration, commencing with 
the sudden and violent abolition of many convents, and the sup- 
pression of many institutions, forms, and ceremonies, by long usage 
become little less than sacred in the eyes of the people. The 
courts of law, the universities and schools, were subjected to sim- 
ilar changes, nor did the imperial decrees spare any order of men, 
or any public establishment, however respectable in other respects, 
from undergoing this severe ordeal, and revolutionary process. 
Nothing could exceed the consternation and disgust with which these 
new regulations were received by all ranks of persons, from" the 
lowest to the highest ; for even the governors-general sided with 
the refractory party, and were averse from carrying into execution 
a system so exceedingly repugnant to the feelings of the people in 
general, but especially of the principal persons amongst the cler- 
gy, laity, and magistrates. Riots and disturbances took place, as 
might have been expected, in many parts, and France was applied 
to for assistance, as guarantee of their liberties. The whole au- 
thority of government seemed to be vested in the minister plenipo- 
tentiary of the emperor, count Belgioso, who had to contend alone 
against the formidable opposition that had sprung up ; for not only 
the governors-general, as has been before intimated, were on the 
side of the people, but even the imperial minister, prince Kaunitz, 
who greatly disapproved the violent proceedings of his master. 

11. Joseph at tirst assumed an appearance of rigour and inflexibili- 
ty, in the pursuit of his new measures, little suitable to the actual 
situation of affairs. He had not foreseen so formidable a resistance, 
and when it occurred, he depended too much on his means for sup- 
pressing it ; embarrassed as he was at the time by the war with 
Turkey. After much threatening, therefore, and strong marks of 
displeasure against the Belgic states, he found it advisable to com- 
promise matters, for a time at least: or rather to offer to relinquish 
all the objectionable parts of his new system ; to re-establish the 
ancient constitution, confirm the celebrated charter, called La joy- 
cuse Entree, and submit to have the case referred to delegates on both 
sides. In this, however, he was not sincere, and his duplicity and 
arbitrary disposition becoming every day more manifest, it was 
impossible to prevent things coming to extremity. The example 
if France was contagious ; the whole population became divided 

wto two parties of patriots and royalists, and the former were 
soon found to be the strongest. In November, 1,789, the states de- 
clared their independence, in consequence of a meeting held al 
Ghent ; the soldiery began to take part with the people. On the 
26th of December, the states of Brabant assumed the sovereign pow- 
er, in which they were soon followed by the states of the other 
Srovinces; a federal union was formed, under the title of the United 
elgic States, and a congress of deputies to administer the new gov- 
ernment, appointed to assemble on the 11th of January, 1,790. 

12. Thus were the low countries sacrificed to the injudicious and 
hasty measures of the emperor, who was too late rendered sensible 
of his errors, when he found them perfectlv irreparable, either in 

Dd 40 



314 MODERN HISTORY 

the way of conciliation or force. He lived to see his offers of peace 
and reconciliation rejected with scorn and contempt, while he totally 
failed in his endeavours to procure the aid of foreign states to reduce 
his revolted subjects to obedience. In other parts of his dominions, 
particularly in Hungary, the same spirit of opposition to his plans 
had been excited, and kept up by similar measures of irritation and 
defiance, till the time of his decease drew near. He would then 
willingly have retraced his steps, and did, indeed, take some meas- 
ures to conciliate the offended Hungarians; but the termination of his 
life was fast approaching, hastened no doubt by the opposition and 
ill fortune which had attended almost the whole of his political career. 
He had weakened his constitution in all probability by the restless 
life he had led, and the hardships and fatigues to which he had ex- 
posed himself in the field ; but he suffered severely in his mind from 
the course things had taken in the Netherlands, and though he exhib- 
'ted in his last moments the fortitude, resignation, and composure 
of a true christian, yet it is truly melancholy to think that his whole 
reign was passed in rendering himself and others wretched. He 
expired on the 20th of February, 1,790, in the forty-ninth year of 
his age ; and leaving no issue, was succeeded in his hereditary do- 
minions by his brother Leopold, who was also chosen emperor before 
the end of the year in which his brother died. 

13. The reign of the emperor Leopold II. was very short, and 
far from a happy one. His brother had left his dominions in a 
wretched state of discontent and confusion ; diminished, in some 
most important instances, and pretty generally exposed to the attacks 
of formidable and designing enemies. Leopold had been able to do 
some good amongst his Tuscan subjects before he ascended the 
royal and imperial thrones, but his genius and talents were judged 

o be unequal to the government of a mighty empire. He soon 
gave satisfaction however, to the aching minds of his new subjects, 
by restoring to many their ancient, privileges, and revoking the in- 
judicious and irritating innovations of his deceased brother. Nor did 
he manage his foreign negotiations ill, which, had they failed, might 
have involved him in inextricable difficulties. By flattering the Eng- 
lish, and appearing to enter into their views in regard to Turkey 
and the Netherlands, he deterred the king of Prussia from prosecut- 
ing his designs upon Gallicia, which he wished to procure for Po- 
land, in exchange for Dantzic and Thorn. Afterwards, by fomenting 
vhat monarch's resentment against England, who appeared to have 
abandoned him, he managed to form a union with the very court 
which at the commencement of his reign had manifested the great- 
est symptoms of rivalry and opposition. This accommodation with 
the king of Prussia greatly facilitated his accession to the imperial 
crown, which was conferred upon him, October 9, 1,790. 

14. By very firm, but conciliatory behaviour towards the Hun- 
garians, who seem to have imbibed at this time many of the demo- 
cratic principles of the French, he not only effectually ingratiated 
himself with the leading persons of the kingdom, but regained the 
affections of the people at large, which had been sadly alienated 
through his brother's unwise interference with their most favourite 
customs and established rights. 

15. Leopold did not so easily settle his disputes with the Nether- 
lands. The mediation of England, Holland, and Prussia, had been 
offered, but he rather inclined to rely on his cwn strength, and his 
connexions with France, which were every hour becoming more 






MODERN HISTORY. 315 

uncertain and precarious. He had recourse therefore to force, and 
succeeded indeed in re-establishing the imperial authority, but total- 
ly detached from any cordial returns of loyalty on the part of the 
Belgians, which became but too apparent, when his subsequent dis- 
putes with the revolutionary government of France exposed those 
parts of the Austrian dominions to fresh troubles and disturbances. 

16. The situation of the emperor Leopold, it must be granted, 
was very embarrassing in the first years of the French revolution. 
The constraint put upon the royal family of France, to which he 
stood so nearly allied, and the threats denounced so openly agains 
the queen his sister, in particular, must have greatly affected his 
private feelings, while many of the German states, whose rights, 
ecclesiastical and territorial, guarantied by the peace of YVest- 
phalia, had been invaded in Alsace, Franche Compte, and Lorraine 
by the decree of the national assembly, for abolishing the feudal 

Erivileges, publicly called upon him to interpose in their behalf, as 
ead ot the empire ; as he stood bound to do indeed by his capitula- 
tion with the diet, on receiving the imperial crown. In regard to 
the royal family of France, his first plans, in conjunction with the 
king ot Prussia, were clearly injudicious, and injurious to the cause 
he took in hand. The French revolutionists were not in a state to 
be intimidated by angry manifestoes or threats of foreign interfe 
rence. The emperor himself, indeed, did often appear cautious of 
embroiling his country in a war with France, but was at length prob 
ably provoked into it, by the violence of the Jacobinical taction at 
Paris, ratner than persuaded by the representations of the emigrant 
princes, or royal family at Paris, as was so strongly alleged. Beyond 
the alliance with Prussia, however, concluded on the 19th of Febru- 
ary, 1,792, the emperor Leopold can scarcely be said to have had 
any share in the war with France ; for, on the 27th of that very 
month, he was seized with an illness, which in three days terminated 
his life, at the early age of forty-four, leaving his dominions in a 
state of more serious danger than when he began his reign. 

17. The emperor Leopold was succeeded in his hereditary states 
by his eldest son Francis, born in 1,768, who became emperor in 
the July following his father's death, and still reigns. This mon- 
arch had to begin those hostilities with France which his predeces- 
sor seems to have contemplated with considerable distrust, and 
he became a party to the too hasty proceedings of his Prussian ally 
and the duke of Brunswick, who increased the irritation and pro- 
voked the resistance of the French, by menaces extremely impo- 
litic, considering the actual state of things. They endeavoured, in- 
deed, to throw the blame on the emigrant princes, who, it was 
alleged, had misled them by false representations of the good dispo- 
sition of the people in the interior of France. They expected to 
find a large majority ready to co-operate with them in the overthrow 
of the ruling faction 

18. The emperor soon found himself in a very awkward situa- 
tion. Instead of invading France with any effect, he had the mor- 
tification to see his own dominions invaded by the French, under 
a general (Dumourier), who had boasted that he would subdue 
the Austrian Netherlands before the end of the year ; an engage- 
ment which he in a great measure fulfilled, through the disaffection 
of the Belgians, who were ready enough to throw off the Austrian 
yoke, heedless that they were in the way of having another imme- 
diately imposed upon them still more galling and vexatious. In the 



5ib MQ&i .TO . 

month of November, 1,792. aii subjection to the imperial authority 
was openly renounced in the very capital of the Netherlands, and 
the French allowed to enter the city in triumph. While these things 
were going on in Flanders, Germany itself was invaded by the French 
general, Custine, Mentz taken, and heavy contributions levied in the 
towns of Worms and Frankfort. 

19. Early in the year 1,793, the Austrians under general Clair- 
fait and the prince of Saxe Coburg, obtained advantages over the 
French, at Aix-ia-Chapelle, which were followed by the capture 
of the towns of Valenciennes and Conde, in conjunction with the 
British army under the command of the duke of York. A separa- 
tion of the two armies afterwards took place, which was attended 
with unpleasant circumstances, and seems to have happened very 
contrary to the desire and wishes of the Austrian commanders. 
The troops under the duke laid siege to Dunkirk, but were unsuc- 
cessful in their attempts against the place, being obliged to abandon 
me undertaking with the loss of the greatest part of their artillery 
and stores. 

20. In the year 1,794, the allied armies again acted in conjunction 
against the French under general Pichegru, the emperor himself 
having joined the camp, but the overwhelming power of the French 
baffled all their attempts to defend the Netherlands, which fell en- 
tirely into the hands of the enemy. 

21. The share which the emperor Francis II. had in the final 
dismemberment of Poland, 1,795, will be shewn in the history of 
chat unhappy country The king of Prussia having gained great 
advantages by this transaction, declined any longer assisting the allies 
against France, and in open violation of his engagements with Eng- 
land, made a peace with the French government,. April 5, 1,795, to 
the great disgust of the confederates. 

22. The contests between the armies of Germany and France, 
in the years 1,796, 1,797, were carried on with the greatest vigour, 
skill, and bravery, on the Rhine, in Suabia, in the Tyrol, and in 
Italy. In 1,796, tne archduke Charles, brother of the emperor, 
acquired great glory by checking the progress of the two celebrat 
ed French* generals, Jourdan and Moreau : and, though compelled 
to retire before Buonaparte, in 1,797, and to subscribe to the peace 
of Campo-Formio, as will be related elsewhere, his credit with the 
army remained undiminished, and his reputation as a general unim- 
paired. On the renewal of the war in 1,799, at the instigation of 
the Neapolitan court, the Austrians were assisted bv the Russians, 
and at the close of the eighteenth century, the tide of affairs seemed 
to be turning greatly against the French, when a new revolution in 
the fluctuating government of that disturbed people, suddenly chang- 
ed the face of things, as will be shewn in our continuation of the 
history of France. 



SECTION XII. 

FRANCE, FROM THE OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY OF THE 
STATES-GENERAL, 1,789, TO THE DEATHS OF THE KING 
AND QUEEN, 1,793. 

I. The states-general met, May 5, 1,789. The king's speech has 
been much admired, as the address of an upright, humane, and 



MODERN HISTORY. 3!7 

patriotic prince, to a respectable assemblage of his subjects, by 
whose political and legislative exertions he hoped to improve the 
state of the nation. The nobles and clergy had expressed a willing- 
ness to forego their pecuniary privileges, but there^ were other 
grounds upon which they seemed likely to be at variance with the 
third estate. The latter were for obliterating all traces of distinc- 
tion in their legislative capacity ; while the former were so impru 
dent as to take some steps, not only indicative of an invincible attach- 
ment to such distinctions, but bearing an air of arrogance and defi- 
ance in them, ill suited to the times. The very costume adopted on 
the occasion was calculated to render the representatives of the 
commonalty almost ridiculous in the eyes of their countrymen. 
The nobles and clergy were distinguished by robes peculiarly rich 
and brilliant; but the whole of the third estate were directed to 
appear in the common and antiquated black dress of the members of 
the law, though of various callings and professions. As soon, how- 
ever, as the commons had verified their powers and were prepared 
to act, without waiting for the concurrence of the other two orders, 
it was proposed by a M. Le Grand, and seconded by the Abbe Sieyes, 
to call their meeting the t% National Assembly" as forming a national 
representation one and indivisible. This was eagerly adopted by 
a majority of the members, but objected to by the king ; at length, 
however, some of the clergy and nobles having joined the third estate, 
the king himself condescended to approve and sanction the union, a 
matter of great triumph to the popular party, and which, in fact, 
made them the arbiters of the destiny of France. 

2. On the 11th of July, 1,789, the king thought it necessary to 
dismiss M. Necker ; many tumults and insurrections were the con- 
sequence of this unpopular proceeding; the Bastile state prison, 
once crowded with the victims of arbitrary power, but at this mo- 
ment, and under the mild reign of Lewis XV I., almost empty, was 
besieged by the mob, taken, and razed to the ground. After many 
tumults of this kind, the king judged it expedient to comply with 
the wishes of his people, and to recali the discarded minister; he 
was also induced by circumstances, to yield to another ^demand of 
more importance, namely, the dismissal of all his troops from the 
environs of Paris and Versailles. In the meanwhile, the marquis de 
la Fayette, who had been engaged in America, and there imbibed a 
spirit of liberty, was fixed upon to take the command of the new 
militia or city guard. Alarmed at the appearance of things at this 
period, many nobles, and even one of the king's brothers, left the 
kingdom. This had undoubtedly a bad effect ; it not only left the 
king more exposed to the violence of faction, but seemed to betoken 
a disregard of the liberties of their country, and a settled purpose of 
invoking foreign aid. 

3. The national assembly soon divided itself into two parties; 
the aristocrats, or such as not only favoured royalty, but to a cer- 
tain extent, the privileged orders, nobles, and clergy ; and the 
democrats, or advocates of freedom ; the swon enemies of all op- 
pressive and distinct privileges ; they were also distinguished into 
royalists and patriots. Among the former we may reckon the mod- 
erates, whose speeches in the assembly are justly to be admired, 
for their extreme good sense and rational politics. Of the nobles, 
it should be observed, that the most obnoxious were those who 
had purchased their nobility, amounting to many thousands. Of 
the ancient, and hereditary nobility there were, it was comput- 

Dd2 



318 MODERN HISTORY. 

ed, not more than two hundred families in the whole kingdom 
when the revolution began, nor were their privileges and exemp- 
tions by any means so great as was pretended. It was soon seen 
which party was the most powerful,- on the 4th of August, 1,789 
decrees were passed, as if with the full consent of the whole as- 
sembly, for the abolition of the privileges of the nobles and clergy, 
provinces and towns ; while persons of every rank and description 
were pronounced to be eligible to all civil, military, and ecclesi- 
astical appointments. The royal family were exposed to horrible 
insults and indignities at Versailles, and at length almost forcibly 
conveyed to Paris ; in consequence of which removal, the assem- 
bly afso adjourned its sittings to the capital, a fatal step to take, 
as" it could not but expose them to the tyranny of a faction, and 
the fury of the Parisian mob. Among the measures adopted at 
this period, the most important were those which placed all 
church property at the disposal of the nation, dissolved all monas- 
tic establishments, feudal privileges and rights, and suppressed the 
provincial parliaments and assemblies, by artfully dividing the king- 
dom into 83 departments, the work of the Abbe Sieyes; by this act 
the very name of province was obliterated from the French vocabu- 
lary, and with it all pecular rights, laws, and jurisdictions , all pro- 
vincial governors, commandants, sub-delegates, presidents, and tri- 
bunals of election ; mayors, echevins, jurats, courts of aid, chambers 
of accounts, &c. Every thing was at this time transacted in the way 
of violence and destruction ; every law voted by acclamation, wifi] 
little patience and less judgment ; thus, when it was proposed (( 
abolish all titles and hereditary distinctions, armorial bearings, live 
ries, &x. the democrats would scarcely suffer the question to be d' 
bated, and it was carried by a large majority, though so many meu 
bers of the assembly must have been deeply affected by it. 

4. The national assembly was slow in preparing a constitutional 
code, particularly in deciding upon the three following questions. 
Whether such assemblies should be permanent or periodical ? com- 
posed of one or two chambers ? and whether the king's veto should 
be absolute or suspensive ? While these things were in agitation, the 
king had attempted to rescue himself from tne trammels imposed 
upon him, by a timely escape from Paris ; but he was stopped on his 
journey, and compelled to return. At length the assembly terminat- 
ed its labours ; a constitutional act was prepared and presented to 
the king, of which, after an interval of ten days, he iJeclared his ac- 
ceptance. Had he been free, it is impossible that he could have 
given his sanction to a measure which subjected the monarch to the 
will of a domineering assembly, and was ill-calculated to repress the 
efforts and designs of a licentious and restless faction. The assembly, 
however, having thus completed its task, was dissolved by the king 
on the 30th day of September, 1,791, being succeeded by another 
convention, denominated "the legislative assembly," whose delibera- 
tion? were confined to the space only of one year ; none of the 
members of the former assembly being eligible to the latter. 

5. In the year 1,792, Austria and Prussia, in consequence of a 
declaration and agreement (according to all accounts imprudent) 
determined upon at Pilnitz, in the preceding year, began to inter- 
fere in behalf of the king and royal family, but so far from alarm- 
ing the revolutionary party in France, their interposition seemed 
only to have the effect of instigating it to acts of greater violence 
and more determined courage. War was without scruple declared 



MODERN HISTORY. Sf§ 

against the king of Hungary and Bohemia, in the month ol April, 
and every preparation made to resist all counter revolutionary 
projects. Sweden and Russia had shewn a strong disposition also to 
interfere; but the assassination of the Swedish monarch, Gustavus 
III., in 1,792, and the distance of Russia from France, prevented 
Doth those countries engaging in actual hostilities. In the mean 
time, Paris became a scene of dreadful confusion; every day some 
new faction seemed to arise to baffle the attempts of those who 
had yet wisdom or temperance enough to prevent things coming to an 
extremity. The legislature was at the mercy of the Parisian clubs, 
and of the mobs, too freely admitted into the galleries of the assem- 
bly. The king was insulted in the grossest manner for having ven- 
tured to interpose his suspensive negative to the passing of two 
severe decrees; one against those who had emigrated, and the 
other against the clergy who declined taking the civic oath. M. la 
Fayette, who had been appointed to take the command of the army, 
wrote from his camp to admonish the national representatives to res- 
cue the country and the king from the factious designs of the enrag- 
ed jacobins ; but in vain ; it served only to exasperate still more the 
anti-royalists, and to bring fresh troubles on the royal family. The 
design of the factious seems to have been, either to intimidate the king 
to a degree of abject submission, or to provoke him to act against the 
constitution in a manner that might render him liable to the ven- 
geance of the people. The march of the Prussian army, and a 
threatening manifesto issued by its commander, the duke of Bruns- 
wick, irritated the violent party into a frantic determination to abolish 
royalty. The king was supposed, or represented, to be confederate 
with the enemy, and deeply engaged in a plot with his emigrant 
brothers and relatives, to counteract the revolution. 

6. A dreadful attack was made on the palace in the month of 
August, the particulars of which are too disgusting to dwell upon; 
but it completed the triumph of the demagogues ; for in compelling 
the king^ guards to act on their defence, they had it in their powei 
to charge the king himself with having made war upon his people. 
Nothing was now heard but the cry of "liberty and equality." The 
u chief of the executive power," as they chose to denominate his maj- 
esty, was formally suspended from his functions, and, under the pre- 
tence of guardianship, committed with his queen and family to the 
temple. 

7. The assembly appeared from this moment to be as much in 
the power of the faction as the king. The period has been too 
justly distinguished by the appropriate title of tt the reign of terror.'* 
The execrable Robespierre was in reality at the head of affairs, and 
it would be impossible adequately to describe the atrocities of his 
merciless career. It would exceed the limits of this work to enter 
far into particular details. La Fayette abandoned the army, as 
unwilling to serve under such masters ; his conduct has been ar- 
raigned, as reflecting at once upon his loyalty, his patriotism, and 
his courage ; it was thought that with the army so much at his 
disposal as it seemed to be, had his principles been such as he pre- 
tended, he would have marched back to Paris, and saved his coun- 
try and his king from the ruin with which they were threatened. 
In the meanwhile the combined troops of Austria and Prussia were 
approaching the frontiers ; differences subsisted in the army ; nor 
was general Dumourier, who had succeeded to the command on 
the retirement of La Fayette, generally confided in, either by the 



3£0 MODERN HISTORY. 

army or the faction. To lessen the number of aristocrats, many 
suspected of belonging to that party were hurried to prison, where, 
without scruple, and with such barbarity as is not to be paralleled 
in the records of history, they were almost all assassinated, to the 
amount, as it has been estimated, of not less than five thousand. 
This happening on the second of September, all who were con- 
cerned in it, as principals or abettors, were denominated Septem- 
brizers. 

8. These were but preludes to a catastrophe, if possible, still 
more shocking : a murder perpetrated with a studied deliberation, 
and with all the mockery of legal forms and ceremonies. HoweA r er 
hastened by the hostile approach of the confederate powers, and 
the injudicious threats they threw out in case any violence should 
be offered to the king's person, nothing could possibly excuse the 
perversion of justice, and gross inhumanity which marked the trials 
of the king and queen ; nothing exceed the melancholy circumstan- 
ces of their imprisonment and execution! On the 11th of Decern 
ber, 1,792, the king appeared before the convention, to hear the 
charges preferred against him. w You are accused," said the 
president, " by the French nation, of having committed a multitude 
of crimes, for the purpose of re-establishing your tyranny by the 
destruction of liberty." He then entered into a few particulars. 
The king, with great dignity, replied, " No existing laws prohibit- 
ed me from doing as 1 did ; I had no wish to injure my subjects, no 
intention of shedding their blood." Further accusations were 
pressed upon him, from which he defended himself with the same 
firmness and simplicity of language, the same coolness and intre- 
pidity of mind. He declared boldly, that his conscience fufiy ac- 
quitted him of the things laid to his charge, and appealed to the 
whole course of his behaviour and carriage towards them as king, 
to exonerate himself from the horrid imputation of having been 
eager and ready to shed the blood of his people. This charge, in- 
deed, rested solely on the events of the lOlh of August, when the 
rabble broke into the palace of the Tuilleries, and not only men- 
aced the lives of the king and his family, but are allowed to have 
begun the sanguinary part of the conflict, by the murder of five of 
his Swiss guards. It was not till after this event that the rest of 
these faithful adherents fired upon the aggressors, and drew upon 
themselves the vengeance that terminated so fatally, for they were 
all destroyed. 

9. It having been resolved that the judgment and decision of the 
case should rest with the national representatives, the convention 
met on the 15th of January, 1,793, to discuss the question of the 
king's guilt, upon the charges so loosely and so maliciously brought 
against him, when it appeared that only thirty-seven were disposed 
to think favourably of his conduct. Six hundred and eighty-three 
members, with little or no hesitation, some, indeed, with the most, 
cruel eagerness and exultation, pronounced him guilty. An attempt 
was made to procure a reference of this matter to the people ; but 
it was over-ruled by a majority of one hundred and thirty-nine. 

10. Having determined the question of his guilt, that of his pun- 
ishment became the next subject of discussion. It was proposed 
to decide between detention, banishment, and death. After a de- 
bate, in which the amiable monarch seemed to be regarded by many 
as despotism personified, no less than three hundred and sixty-one, 
or, according to some accounts, three hundred and sixty -six members, 



MODERN HISTORY. 321 

voted peremptorily for death ; and on a further question, whether 
the execution of the sentence should be suspended or take place 
immediately, the votes for the latter amounted to three hundred and 
eighty against three hundred and ten. The king was to be informed 
of the result of their proceedings, and to suffer death in twenty-four 
hours afterwards. The advocates for the king were allowed to 
address the assembly, and to move an appeal to the people, but with- 
out effect. On the motion of Robespierre, the decree was pro- 
nounced irrevocable, and the king's defenders debarred from any 
further hearing. 

11. On the 21st of January his majesty, having previously taken 
leave of his family, and performed the services o r devotion, was 
conveyed to the place of execution; nothing couia exceed the 
pious resignation with which he submitted to the cruel and unjust 
sentence which doomed him to death, and during his passage to the 
square of the revolution, where the guillotine was erected, he be- 
trayed no symptoms of fear or anger. On the scaffold, he manifest- 
ed a strong desire to address the crowd ; but the drums were made 
to sound louder, and he was rudely bidden to be silent ; in a moment 
after, his head was severed from his body, and shewn to the people 
as the head of a tyrant and a traitor ! 

12. History, both public and private, has borne ample testimony 
to the falsehood of the charges brought against him ; every nation 
in Europe concurred in condemning the conduct of the French regi- 
cides ; and though, in exciting the resentment of fresh enemies, 
England and Spain particularly, it threatened the ruin of the new 
republic ; it appeared by no means to have satisfied the blood-thirsty 
vengeance of the ruling faction, The democratic, or republican 
party, had long been split into two divisions, and their opposition to 
each other seemed at this time to be at the height. Brissot, who 
headed the Girondists, (so called from the department of Gironde, 
which some of that side represented,) was still alive ; Robespierre, 
Danton, and Marat, directed the movements of the opposite faction; 
for some time previously called the Mountain, from the elevated seats 
they occupied in the hall of the convention. 

13. It seemed now to be a question which of these turbulent par- 
ties should obtain the ascendancy ; and a contest of this nature was 
not likely to be decided without a much larger effusion of blood. 
" The reign of terror 1 ' still continued, and many more victims were 
preparing for the stroke of that fatal instrument, which seemed to 
have been timely invented for the quick and incessant course of 
decapitation and destruction now adopted. Had any thing been capa- 
ble of producing domestic union, it might have been expected, from 
the formidable confederacy of foreign powers, armed against the na- 
tion ; for, in addition to Austria and Prussia, England, Spain, and 
Portugal, were at open war with France ; while a royalist party had 
arisen within its own confines, of rather a formidable description, 
considering the strength of the enemies without, and the distracted 
state of the government. 

14. Though such was the situation of the country, with regard 
to foreign powers, and royalists at home, the struggle between the 
Girondists and Robespierrean faction was carried on at Paris with 
the utmost violence and precipitation ; but the Mountain prevailed. 
The leaders of the Brissotines were arrested and confined in the 
month of May 5 and on the 31st of October following, all executed* 
Brissot himseli saw sixteen of his party guillotined before it came to 



S22 MODERN HISTORY. 

his turn, and four were beheaded afterwards. Many of them were 
persons of considerable talents, and not destitute of private virtues, 
had they lived in less turbulent and trying times. 

15. Horrible as this execution must have been, one still more 
appalling had engaged the attention of the people, on the same spot, 
only fifteen days before. Loaded with insults, and deprived of every 
possible comfort or consolation, " the widow of Lewis Capet," as 
they chose to call their queen, (a princess of Austria, and daughter 
of the high-minded Maria Theresa,) had not been suffered to enjoy 
one moment of repose from the day of the king's execution ; prep- 
arations were soon after made for her own trial, which, if possible, 
was conducted in a manner still more revolting to every feeling 
mind, than that which had been adopted in the case of her unhappy 
consort. Her guilt and her punishment were as soon decided upon ; 
but even after this sad act of vengeance and injustice, shocking circum- 
stances of ignominy, degradation, and persecution took place, scarce- 
ly to be credited as the acts of any.portion of a people at all advanced 
in civilization ; she was cast into a dungeon, and delivered into the 
custody of a gaoler seemingly selected on purpose to insult over 
her misfortunes, and aggravate her sufferings. On the dreadful day 
of her execution, she was conveyed to the scaffold in a common cart, 
with her hands tied behind her, amid the brutal shouts of an infuriat- 
ed populace. Thus died, in the 38th year of her age, the queen 
of one of the greatest kingdoms of the earth ; a princess, who, 
though not entirely free from faults, had, till this fatal revolution, 
lived in all the splendour and luxury of a court, the marked object, 
not only of admiration and adulation, but of homage so profound, and, 
in some instances so servile and ensnaring, as to palliate and account 
for all the errors of her short, but eventlul life. 



SECTION XIII. 

GREAT BRITAIN, FROM THE CONCLUSION OF THE AMERI- 
CAN WAR, 1,783, TO THE PEACE OF AMIENS, 1,802. 

1. From the peace of Versailles, in 1,783, to the commencement 
of the year 1,793, Great Britain kept free from war, though not 
without some disputes with foreign powers, and occasional calls 
upon her to interpose, as an ally or mediatrix, in the affairs of other 
states, Holland particularly. Soon after the termination of the 
American war, extraordinary changes in the administration took 
place. The ministry that negotiated the peace, at the head of 
which was the earl of Shelburne, was displaced, and succeeded by 
what was called the coalition ministry, from the extraordinary cir- 
cumstance of Mr. Fox and lord North becoming joint secretaries of 
state, after an opposition peculiarly animated, and a positive declara- 
tion on the part of the former, that they differed so in principle as to 
render such an union for ever impracticable. 

2. The unpopularity of such an apparent dereliction of principle, 
as might reasonably be expected, rendered their continuance in 
power extremely precarious, and it was not long before their re- 
moval was effected, in consequence of a bill brought into parlia- 
ment by Mr. Fox, to regulate the affairs of India. The measure 
was judged to be fraught with danger to the constitution, by throw- 
ing too much power into the hands of a board of commissioners, to 



MODERN HISTORY 323 

be chosen by parliament, and though it passed the commons, it was 
thrown out by the lords, and the ministry dismissed. 

3. Mr. Pitt, a younger son of the great lord Chatham, now came 
into power, not in any subordinate situation, but as premier, though 
at the early age of twenty-four, and under circumstances peculiarly 
embarrassing, for he had long to contend against a majority of the 
house of commons, who threatened to stop the supplies, and effect 
his removal, as not enjoying the confidence of the people. This 
6eing judged too great an interference with the prerogative, and 
*nany addresses being presented to the king to retain him in his 
service, the parliament was at length dissolved, and the issue turned 
jut to be extremely favourable to the choice of his majesty. 

4. The affairs of India manifestly requiring the interposition of 
government, Mr. Pitt, as soon as possible, procured a bill to that 
effect to be passed, according to which a board of control was to be 
appointed, not by parliament, but by the crown. Though this in- 
creased in some degree the influence of the latter, it was judged to 
be far less hazardous than the proposal of Mr. Fox, which threatened 
to throw such a power into the hands of the minister and his friends, 
as might enable them to overawe the sovereign, and render their 
removal almost impracticable. Mr. Pitt's bill, also, was found to in- 
terfere far less with the chartered rights of the company. It passed 
the lords, August 9, 1,784. 

5. Another measure of considerable importance occupied the at- 
tention of the minister, during the year 1,786, which was expected 
to contribute greatly to the support of public credit. This was the 
establishment of a new sinking fund, by appropriating the annual 
sum of one million, to be invariably applied to the liquidation of the 
public debt. At a subsequent period, a sinking fund of still greater 
importance was established, by which every future loan was to 
carry with it its own sinking fund. This was proposed to the house 
in 1792, and readily adopted: it consisted in raising one per cent.. 
besides the dividends upon every new stock created, to be applied 
by the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt, in the 
same manner, and under the same regulations as the original mil- 
lion* 

6. From the commencement of the year 1,786, to the year 1,795, 
the attention of the British parliament was in a very extraordinary 
manner occupied with the charges brought against Mr. Hastings, 
governor-general of Bengal, in February, 1,786. Mr. Burke, whose 
mind had been long affected by the abuses practised in India, by 
the servants of the company, had appeared for some time to have 
fixed his eye upon Mr. Hastings, as a tit object of prosecution ; and 
he now moved for papers to substantiate the charges upon which 
he meant to impeach him. These charges being discussed in par- 
liament, during the session of 1,787, and referred to a committee, 
were confirmed by the house of commons, on the 9th of May, and 
the articles of impeachment exhibited to the house of lords, on the 
14th ; in consequence of which Mr. Hastings was taken into cus- 
tody, but, on the motion of the lord chancellor, admitted to bail. 
The trial did not commence till February 15, 1,788, was continued 
not only through the whole of that parliament, though very si wly, 
but after much debate, determined to be pending on the commence- 

* By this provision every loan would have its own fund, which would 
operate at compound interest, and discharge the debt in forty seven years 
at the longest, from the time it was first incurred. 



S84 MODERN HISTORY. 

ment of the new parliament, 1,790, and not brought to a conclusion 
till the month of April, 1,795. 

7. The question whether the impeachment abated on the dis- 
solution of parliament, appearing to involve a constitutional point 
of the highest importance, was discussed with singular attention, 
and a large display of legal and parliamentary knowledge. Th# 
law members of both houses were never perhaps so divided in then 
opinions; but the numerous precedents cited by Mr. Pitt seemed 
clearly to decide the question as follows : that though legislative 
processes are abated by prorogation or dissolution, it is not so with 
regard to judicial proceedings. It appeared to be a nice and curious 
question, and, as affecting the responsibility of ministers, its decision 
mav be regarded as singularly important. 

8. Though in the course of the proceedings and prosecution of 
the various charges against Mr. Hastings, the eloquence of the 
managers exceeded all that could have been expected, yet nevei 
perhaps were so great talents employed with less success ; a trial of 
such seeming importance, so strangely protracted ; or a case of 
impeachment brought to an issue so little answerable to the expec- 
tations thai had been excited. It would be impossible to deny that 
flagrant and enormous abuses had been committed in India during 
the period in question, yet, the very length of the trial made it ap- 
pear to most persons in the light oi a persecution, and that of an in- 
dividual to whom the company and the nation stood highly indebted 
for many eminent services. As it ended in the acquittal of Mr. Has- 
tings, that gentleman may be presumed innocent. One good, how- 
ever, seems to have arisen from the investigation ; all succeeding 
governors-general have certainly been more circumspect and correct 
in their proceedings. 

9. In the course of the year 1,787, great disturbances having 
taken place in the united provinces, fomented by the French, and 
threatening the dissolution of the stadtholderate, an alliance was 
formed between the courts of St. James's and Berlin, to protect the 
rights of the prince of Orange, and resist the interference of the 
French. Preparations for war took place, but the Prussian army 
decided matters without any active co-operation on the part of 
Great Britain. The alarming state of things in France, appeared 
to deter the court of Versailles from rendering that assistance, to 
the malecontents of Holland, which the latter had been taught to 
expect. 

10. Puring the session of 1,788, the attention of the house oi 
commons was first called to the horrible circumstances attending 
the African slave-trade. It is quite surprising that such a traffic 
should have been so long carried on, without exciting the resent 
ment of every sensible mind, and disgusting the feelings of a civil- 
ized people ; unfortunately, when first noticed, it was found to be 
so deeply interwoven with the interests of our settlements in the 
West Indies, and to depend so much on foreign states, as well as 
our own, as to render it almost necessary to proceed slowly and 
cautiously, though it was impossible not to be horror-struck with 
the information laid before the house, particularly in regard to 
what was called the middle-passage, or transportation of the unhap- 
py Africans, from their native shores to the several islands. As it 
would be inconsistent with the nature of such a work as the present, 
to enter into the detail of the proceedings upon this very interesting 
subject, which took up a long time, and can scarcely now be said to 



MODERN HISTORY. SStb 

be terminated, it may be sufficient to note, that, after continual re- 
newals of the subject in the two houses of parliament, yet, owing to 
many untoward circumstances, it was not finally abolished till the 
year 1,806, nor has it even yet been in the power of any ministry, 
or any of our diplomatists, effectually to prevent the trade, as car- 
ried on by foreign states, though every person of humane feelings 
must devoutly wish and desire that it should be so. It must, how- 
ever, always redound to the credit of our own country, that the 
voice of compassion and mercy was first heard amongst us, and that 
the first arm stretched out to save and to rescue a large proportion 
of our fellow -creatures from the most abject slavery and cruel tor 
tures that ever were inflicted, was the arm of a Briton 

11. The parliament being prorogued on the 11th of July, 1,788, 
to the 20th of November, was compelled to meet on the day ap- 
pointed, by circumstances of a most distressing kind. His majesty, 
probably through excess of business, to which he was known to 
devote more time and labour than could well be consistent with 
his health, was seized with an illness which totally incapacitated 
him from discharging the functions of his high and exalted station. 
It must appear strange, that by the laws and constitution of the 
realm, so little provision had been made for a catastrophe by no 
means out of the line of probability, that it became a question into 
what hands the suspended executive had devolved, and this led, as 
might be expected, to very warm and important debates in parlia 
ment. Though the prince of Wales, being of full age, did not person 
ally claim the regency as matter of right, his party did. The min- 
ister, Mr. Pitt, contended that it belonged to parliament to supply 
the deficiency ; and this question being stated, it was judged expe 
dient to debate it, and settle it by vote. The decision upon this 
occasion was entirely in favour of the power of parliament to 
appoint the regent, none doubting, however, that the heir apparent 
was the fit object of such appointment. Other questions were 
agitated at the same time, of equal importance ; particularly how 
far restrictions could be imposed by parliament, in regard to the ex- 
ercise of prerogatives, the whole of which were reasonably enough 
supposed to be essential to the government of the country. This 
question also was decided in favour of the minister, who had proposed 
restrictions, with an understanding, however, that they could only 
apply to a temporary suspension of the kingly power. In this case 
also, the care of the king's person was assigned not to the regent, but 
to the queen. One great difficulty remained after all the discussions 
upon the regency. It was douoted how the lord chancellor could 
be empowered to put the great seal to a commission for opening the 
sessions of parliament, so as to restore " the efficacy of legislation ;" 
it was decided that he might be directed to do it in the name of the 
king, by authority of the two houses. 

12. Fortunately for the public, this first illness of his majesty 
was of so short duration, as to render unnecessary all the changes 
that had been contemplated. Early in the year 1,789, the lord 
chancellor was able to announce to the houses of parliament, the 
perfect recovery of the king. Nothing could exceed the transports 
of joy with which this intelligence was received throughout the 
whole kingdom. A national thanksgiving was appointed, and his 
majesty went himself in great state to St. Paul's, to offer up hii 
grateful devotions on the event. The illuminations on the occasion 
were so general, that it is probable, from the accounts given of 

Ee 



S26 MODERN HISTORY, 

them, that scarcely a cottage in the most remoteparts of the island 
was without its show of loyalty and aneciion. Trie appearance of 
the metropolis, in particular, was most extraordinary, and notwith- 
standing the immense concourse of people that continued almost the 
whole night in the streets, and the crowded throng of carriages and 
horses, so strong a disposition was shown by all ranks and descriptions 
of persons to conduct things peaceably, that fewer accidents occurred 
than were ever known before in similar cases. 

13. It should be noted, as a matter of general history, that had 
not his majesty recovered so opportunely, difficulties of an extraor- 
dinary nature might have ensued, from the different proceedings of 
the two legislatures of Great Britain and Ireland. While in the 
former it was decided that the prince could not assume the regency, 
as matter of right, and that the parliament had a power to impose 
restrictions, in Ireland, his right appeared to be acknowledged by 
the two houses agreeing to address him, to take upon him immediately 
the government of that kingdom, during the king's incapacity, and 
with the usual powers of royalty. 

14. In the year 1,789, the proceedings in France began to occup- 
the attention of Europe, and of England in particular. A struggle for 
freedom seemed to be so congenial to the spirit of the people of the 
latter country, that it is not to be wondered that the commencement 
of so extraordinary a revolution should excite the strongest sensa- 
tions. Unfortunately the abuses in the French government were so 
many, and some of them so entirely contrary to every principle of 
reason and equity, that it soon became apparent that nothing less 
than a radical change, and revolution of every existing institution 
and establishment, would satisfy the disturbed minds of that volatile 
people ; minds unhappily prepared not merely to resist oppression, 
out to throw off every restraint of religion and morality. Such an 
example, therefore, required to be watched and guarded against, in 
a country whose free constitution supplied its own means of refor 
mation in every case of necessity, and where tumultuary proceedings 
could only lead to ends the most fatal and deplorable. Mr. Pit* 
seemed aware of this, and though his measures of precaution were 
supposed occasionally to press too hardly on the liberty of the sub- 
ject, it must be admitted that a very improper intercourse was at 
times carried on between the several popular associations in England 
and Ireland, and the national assembly of France. The object of 
the latter, in its replies to the addresses presented to it, being, accord- 
ing to all reasonable interpretation of the terms used, to invite and 
encourage the discontented of all countries to follow their exampie, 
which was every day becoming more violent and anarchical, 
This was not all j emissaries were employed to propagate their 
principles in other countries, many of whom came to England, and 
met with an encouragement not to be overlooked by a government 
properly sensible of the dangers to be incurred by any adoption of 
such sentiments and principles, in a country so very differently situ- 
ated from that of France. England had long ago done for herself 
what France was now attempting ; and though no such changes and 
revolutions can be expected to take place without some violence, 
yet England had passed through this ordeal, and accomplished her 
point a whole century before France began to assert her liberties. 
It was little less than an insult to every true Englishman, therefore, 
to attempt to stir hirst ■"* to such violent proceedings as had already 
beeffl »uRte«s*3 * 7 } > ' tanctioned by the French revolutionists ; but 



MODERN HISTORY. 

that such attempts were making, could not but be too obvious. Oft 
the 19th of November, 1,792, the national assembly passed a decree, 
that they would grant fraternity and assistance to all who might wish 
to recover their liberty. This was two months after they had pro- 
claimed the eternal abolition of royalty, and imprisoned the king; after 
they had declared hereditary nobility to be incompatible with a tree 
state ; and thus, by implication, declared that England and most ot 
the other states of Europe were not free. It was afterwards provedj 
by their own acknowledgment, that before any declaration of war, 
more than a million sterling had been sent to England from the 
national treasury of France, for purposes strictly revolutionary, 
No country was free from these political disturbers ; even general 
Washington, as president of the United States of America, wag 
obliged to publish letters patent, to withdraw his countenance from 
the accredited French ministers in that country, who had grossly 
insulted him as head of the executive government. 

15. In the year 1,790, an unpleasant dispute arose between the 
courts of St. James's and Madrid, which had nearly involved the 
two countries in a war. It related to a settlement on the north- 
western coast of America, which had been attempted by some sub- 
jects of Great Britain, at Nootka Sound, for the carrying on a fur 
trade with China. The Spaniards, conceiving this to be an invasion 
of their rights, under a claim to these distant regions the most ex- 
travagant and absurd, with great precipitation attacked the English 
settled there, took the fort which had been erected with the consent 
of the Indians, and seized upon the vessels. It was not possible to 
pass over so great an outrage ; but by the vigorous and timely prep- 
arations made to procure reparation, and the little hope of assist- 
ance to be derived from France, in case things should come to ex- 
tremities, the Spanish court was brought to terms before the expira- 
tion of the year; and not only every point in dispute ceded to the 
English, but many advantages granted with regard to the navigation 
of the Pacific ocean. 

16. In the course of the same year, the British court interfered 
successfully to restore peace between Austria and Turkey, and 
was further instrumental, though not without some hindrances, in 
reducing the revolted Netherlands to the dominion and authority 
of the former power. Her attempts to mediate between Russia 
and the Porte, were by no means so successful, and had nearly, in- 
deed, involved the nation in war, for an object of very little im- 
portance in the eyes of the public at large, though the ministei 
seemed to think otherwise. In consequence, however, of the op- 
position he met with, he was induced to forego the plan he had in 
view, of preventing Russia getting possession of the town of Ocza- 
kow, and a peace was concluded with that power at Yassi, January, 
1,792. 

17. Towards the close of the same year, after the king of France 
and his f»^dly were in a state of confinement, many attempts were 
made by the national assembly to ascertain the views of England 
with regard to the confederacy formed against her, and the question 
of poace or war seemed nearly brought to an issue, before the horrible 
execution of the king, in the month of January, 1 ,793. That event 
being followed by the dismissal of the French minister at London, 
ap^oared so totally to dissolve all friendly communications between 
the two countries, as to induce the French government, by a decree 
cl die assembly February 3, 1,793, to declare war against the king. 



328 MODERN HISTORY. 

cf Great Britain and the stadtholder of Holland ; in which decree, 
mere was evidently an attempt in the very wording of it to separate 
the people of the two countries from their respective sovereigns. 

18. By this time, indeed, the encroaching disposition of the 
French revolutionists was manifested in their annexation of Savoy 
to France for ever, as soon as they had gained any advantages over 
it; and in their conduct in the Netherlands, by declaring the navi- 
gation of the Scheld free, contrary to all subsisting treaties with 
the Dutch. The same spirit was apparent in their refusal to ex- 
empt Alsace and Lorraine from the operation of the decrees for the 
abolition of feudal rights, and in their forcible seizure of Avignon 
and the comtat Venaissin, which had belonged to the Roman see 
for many centuries. It is true, the indiscreet manifestoes of the 
combined armies were sufficient to stimulate a people, already in 
a high degree of irritation, to acts of severe reprisal, in all cases of 
success ; but it was very manifest that they had already violated 
their own principle of not acting on a system of aggrandizement, 
of which they made such boast at the beginning of the revolution. 
Their glaring abandonment of this principle, and the injury done to 
the Dutch by opening the Scheld, were the ostensible grounds of 
the v/ar on the part of England. The declaration of France, in 
some degree, saved the minister from the responsibility of having 
actually commenced hostilities, however, in the opinion of opposi- 
tion, he might be said to have provoked them ; but it should still be 
observed, that there was a treaty subsisting between the two countries, 
affirming that the recal or dismission of public ministers should be 
considered tantamount to a declaration of war. If so, and the treaty 
was not invalidated by the change of things at Paris, as many asserted, 
the first declaration of war proceeded from the English government- 
who, on the suspension of the kingly authority, had recalled lord 
Gower from Paris, (many other courts, however, having done the 
same,) and on the death of the king, abruptly dismissed the French 
minister, M. Chauvelin, from England. 

19. The exact objects of the hostile interference of England 
were never formally explained in parliament, though in the king's 
declaration they were regarded as too notorious ; every thing con- 
duced to render it apparent, that they had in view as much to op- 
pose the propagation of anarchical principles, as the violence of 
territorial aggressions; that previously to the declaration of war 
on either part, the English government had shown a disposition not 
to interfere with the internal affairs of France, seems manifest from 
many circumstances. 

20. It is not necessary to enter into the details of the war that 
took place after England joined the confederacy. The extraor- 
dinary progress and success of the French appertains to the history 
of that country, and may therefore be found elsewhere. Though 
the British troops fought with their accustomed bravery, and ob- 
tained in their first campaign some signal advantages, yet, owing 
in some measure to the want of harmony and cordiality between 
the confederates, but still more to the overwhelming force of 
France, now risen en masse, they ultimately met with great reverses, 
and were compelled to abandon the country they had undertaken to 
defend; but though unsuccessful by land, on the ocean England 
maintained her wonted superiority. Many of the French West In- 
dia islands fell into her power in the summer of 1,794, and a most 
decisive victory was gained by lord Howe, over the Brest fleet, op 



MODERN HISTORY. 329 

the 1st of June. The island of Corsica also was subdued, and by 
the anti-gallican party, with the celebrated Paschal Paoli at their 
head, erected into a monarchy, the kingly power and prerogatives 
being freely conferred on his majesty George III. In the month of 
October, however, 1,796, the French party recovered the ascenden- 
cy, and the island being evacuated by the English, was re-annexed 
to France. 

21. At the conclusion of the year 1,794, though France had on 
the continent made surprising acquisitions, the spirits of the English 
were far from being shaken, and the utmost efforts were cheerfully 
made for continuing the contest on the ocean; and in all the colonies 
of the enemy, the advantages were clearly on the side of the British, 
during the years 1,795, 1,796, and 1,797, when negotiations for 
peace took place, but without being brought to any favourable issue. 
At the close of 1,797, his majesty, attended by the two houses of 
parliament, and the great officers of state, went to St. Paul's, to offer 
up a public and national thanksgiving for the naval victories obtained 
in all parts of the world; upon which occasion, many flags and 
colours taken from the French, Spaniards, and Dutch, were borne in 
solemn pomp to the cathedral, and deposited on the altar. Nothing 
could exceed the enthusiasm with which the British nation at this 
period appeared disposed to resist the threats of the enemy. The 
national militia having offered to transfer their services to Ireland, 
to suppress a rebellion which had broken out there, volunteer corps 
were formed in all parts of the kingdom to supply their place, and 
the people were readily induced to submit to a measure of finance, 
then first adopted, namely, of raising, by a triple assessment, (after 
wards converted into an income and property tax,) a large propor 
tion of the supplies wanted for carrying on the war within the ymr ; 
sc much, in short, of the loan, as should exceed the sum discharged 
by the operation of the sinking fund, so that no addition should be 
made to the permanent debt. 

22. In the year 1,798, the affairs of Ireland occasioned great dif- 
ficulties. A regularly organized rebellion, the leaders of which 
were in constant communication with the enemy, threatened to- 
tally to dissolve the connexion subsisting between that country 
and Great Britain, and to invite the aid and co-operation of France, 
at the manifest hazard of rendering Ireland a dependency of the 
latter power, as had already been the case with Savoy, Belgium, 
Lombardy, and Venice. Ireland had but lately obtained concessions 
from England of no inconsiderable importance, a free trade, and the 
recognition of her political independence ; but the catholics were dis- 
satisfied with the national representation, to the defects in which 
they attributed the continuance of the penal statutes still directed 
against them. The French revolution led to the formation of the 
society of United Irishmen, in 1,791, which had many reforms and 
changes in view, though short perhaps of an entire revolution. In 
1,795, from representations made to it of the oppressed state of Ire- 
land, the French government regularly proffered its assistance to 
subvert the monarchy, and separate Ireland from Britain. Fortunate- 
ly the plans of the traitors were timely discovered, and though U 
was not possible to prevent a recourse to arms, which afflicted many 
parts of the kingdom between April and October, yet the principal 
ringleaders were for the most part seized, executed, or compelled to 
fly, and under the able government of lord Cornwallis, tranquillity 

Ee2 42 



330 MODERN HISTORY. 

tvas happily restored, with less difficulty and damage than had been 
expected. 

23. The situation of affairs in Ireland during 1,798, led in the fol- 
lowing year to the project of an union between the two countries, 
which Mr. Pitt submitted to the British parliament in the form of a 
message from the king, January 22, 1,799. The Irish legislature 
having been declared independent in 1,782, it was obvious that no 
such measure could be carried into execution without the free con- 
sent and acquiescence of the Irish parliament. Many circumstan- 
ces seemed to conduce to render the proposed union desirable and 
beneficial to both nations, and at this particular moment, to recon- 
cile most people to it. The catholics of Ireland had become dis- 
satisfied with the parliament of that country, while the protestants, 
who were greatly outnumbered by the catholics, though they pos- 
sessed four fifths of the property of the kingdom, had good reason 
to suppose their interests and ascendency would be best secured 
in one united and imperial parliament, than in a distinct legisla- 
ture, in a country where the catholics had already obtained their 
elective franchise, and composed the bulk of the population. They 
might also reasonably apprehend the consequences of the overtures 
that had been made to France, and the alarming progress of revolu- 
tionary principles. In the case of the regency, the dangers incident 
to two distinct legislatures, had been rendered sufficiently apparent. 
On all these accounts, though the measure was at first very coldly 
entertained, and even rejected by the Irish house of commons ; the 
minister was greatly encouraged to proceed, by the strong support 
he received in both countries, from persons of all ranks and parties. 
A series of resolutions was proposed to the house, to be laid before 
his majesty, recommendatory of the proposed union, which, after 
some opposition, was sent to a committee by a majority of 140 to 
1 5. In the lords, the address passed without a division ; a protest, 
however, being entered on the books, signed by three lords, Hol- 
land, Thanet, and King. 

24. The last year of the eighteenth century was distinguished 
by the most important events in India, where the English, under the 
government of the earl of Mornington, totally defeated the most 
insidious, and powerful enemy, the forces in that remote country 
ever had to contend with ; Tippoo Saib, the sultan of Mysore, son 
of the celebrated Hyder Ally Khan, who had usurped those domin- 
ions in 1,761. In the years 1,784, and 1,792, treaties of peace had 
been concluded between the sultan and the English, which, however, 
had had very little effect on the former, who had shown himself 
constantly attached to the French interests ; and having been com- 
pelled by the last treaty to cede one half of his dominions to the 
conquerors, and to deliver two of his sons as hostages into the hands 
&f lord Cornwallis, the governor-general, appears to have harboured 
she most inveterate hatred against the English from that moment, 
and to have meditated, by the aid of the French, and certain of the 
native powers, nothing less than their total extirpation. It would be 
impossible, perhaps, to find in history stronger instances of duplicity 
and treachery, than were practised by this celebrated potentate 
against the British interests, during the years 1,797 and 1,798, in 
the spring of the latter of which, lord Mornington arrived in India. 
With the French directory, with the French colonial government in 
Mauritius, with the king of Candahar, with the courts of Poonah 

nd Hyderabad, with Buonaparte in Egypt, and even with the Oito- 



MODERN HISTORY. $31 

man Porte, at the same time, the wily sultan managed to carry on 
secret negotiations, amidst the strongest professions of amity and 
attachment towards the English government. It has been conjectur- 
ed, that had he obtained effectual aid from the French, in extirpating 
the English, he would as willingly have turned against his European 
abettors ; the purport of all his negotiations with the native powers, 
being to stir them up to a general combination against the injideh 
and enemies of the prophet, without any distinction of the two 
nations. 

25. By the extreme vigilance and cautious proceedings of the 
new governor-general, the intrigues of the sultan, notwithstanding 
his reiterated assurances of fidelity, were so amply discovered and 
exposed, as to vindicate, in the fullest manner, the declaration of 
war which took place in February, 1,799, and which was speedily 
followed up by the most vigorous proceedings on the part of the 
army, terminating in the capture of Seringapatam, the capital of 
the Mysorean dominions, May 4, and the death of the sultan, whose 
body was found, after the action, covered with heaps of dead, .his 
immense territories were divided amongst the allied powers^ the 
remains of his family provided for in the Carnatic, and a boy ot five 
years old, the surviving representative of the Hindoo dynasty, restor- 
ed to the throne of his ancestors. 

26. In the first year of the new century, the projected union and 
incorporation of the two legislatures and kingdoms of Great Britain 
and Ireland, was brought to a conclusion. Doubts were expressed 
in the Irish house of commons, and supported by great strength of 
argument, whether, as a delegated body, and without a fresh ap- 
peal to their constituents, they could formally consent to their own 
annihilation. Strong suspicions also were thrown out, that the plan 
had no other object in view than that of recovering to England the 
domination she had surrendered in 1,782, when the independency of 
the Irish legislature had been fully, and, as it was alleged, finally 
acknowledged and established; but these objections were over- 
ruled. It was no surrender, it was urged, of their legislative rights, 
to consent to be incorporated with the parliament of Great Britain, 
but a consolidation of them ; and their consent would acquire a 
character from the regulations of 1,782, highly honourable to the 
nation; she could now treat as an independent state, and upon a 
footing of equality, instead of being in any respect compelled, as 
might otherwise have been fhe case, to an union of subjection. 
Early in the year 1 ,800, the assent of the two houses of parliament, 
in Ireland, was signified in addresses to his majesty, transmitted 
through the lord lieutenant, which being submitted to the British 
parliament, after much discussion and debate on the bill in gen- 
eral, as well as its several provisions, the union of the two king, 
doms was finally arranged to take place from the first of January, 
1,801. 

27. The act of incorporation contained eight articles : the first 
three decreed the union of the two kingdoms, the maintenance of 
the protestant succession, and consolidation of the parliament. By 
the fourth, it was settled that four prelates should sit alternately in 
each session, and twenty-eight lay pesrs be elected for life, while 
two members for each county, (thirty-two in all) and thirty-six citi- 
zens and burgesses, should represent the commons. The fifth article 
united the churches of England and Ireland ; the sixth and seventh 
provided for the commercial and financial arrangements of the two 



352 MODERN HISTORY. 

countries, and the eighth for the maintenance of laws then in f *>i 
and continuance of the courts of judicature. 

28. On the first of January, 1,801, a royal declaration was if leA 
regulating the style and titles appertaining to the imperial cro - o of 
Great Britain and Ireland, with the arms, flags, and ensigns tb**eo£ 
In these arrangements, the opportunity was judiciously tak«at of 
laying aside the title of king of France, and the French arnv ; the 
title in English was confined to Great Britain and Ireland ; in \<atin, 
" Britanniarum Rex," and the quartering of the "Jleurs de lis,™ omit- 
ted in the blazonry. 

29- A fresh revolution in the government of France, about this 
time, having thrown the executive power, in a great measure, 
into the hands of a supreme magistrate, the first consul, and over- 
tures for peace having been made by Buonaparte in that capacity, 
much discussion upon the subject took place between the ministers 
of the two countries, but wiihout effect. The Austrians having 
sustained a defeat in Italy, had solicited and obtained a suspension of 
hostilities, and entered upon some negotiations for peace, to which 
England was invited to become a party, upon consenting to a naval 
armistice, but her maritime power stood so high, that while Malta 
continued subject to France, and the French army unsubdued in 
Egypt, she could not reasonably be expected to forego such advan- 
tages, and to place herself upon a footing with her continental ally, 
whose situation was so different. Her determination to continue the 
war, was soon followed by the surrender of Malta, on the 5th of Sep- 
tember, 1,800, and in thecourse of the next year, the French troops 
were compelled finally to abandon Egypt; thus terminating an ex 

E edition, in a great degree mysterious, but which, no doubt, might 
ave led to the disturbance of our power in India, had it not been for 
the interruption it met with on its way thither, and the overthrow of 
Tippoo Saib. 

30. In the course of the year 1,800, the enemies of England were 
greatly increased by the revival amongst the northern powers, of 
the armed neutrality, originally devised and adopted in 1,780. As 
this dispute involved a very curious point of international law, it 
would have been well, if it could have been brought to such an 
issue as might have settled the question for ever ; but, after much 
negotiation, and some very unpleasant conflicts at sea, (particularly 
with the Danes,) seizures and embargoes, the matter terminated 
rather in an uncertain compromise, than any positive adjustment. 
The right of search by belligerents, however inconvenient to neu- 
trals, seemed to have been acknowledged for many centuries, as a 
principle of maritime law ; upon the system of the armed neutrality, 
it was contended that ships under convoy should pass free, the flag 
of the neutral power being sufficient pledge and security that the 
cargoes were not contraband of wnr. The claim in this case being 
evidently directed against England, then, and at all times mistress 
of the sea, rendered it a point of extreme importance ; one which 
she could not surrender without a contest, or armed negotiation; 
otherwise, and if it had not been decidedly in favour of her oppo- 
nents, the countenance given to the new system by so many states of 
Europe, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, Naples, France, Spain, 
Holland, Austria, Portugal, Venice, and Tuscany, (for by some steps 
or other they all seemed disposed to adopt the spirit of it,) might have 
been expected to amount to a formal recognition of its principle, as 
a proper law of nations ; the dispute, however, upon this occasion, 



MODERN HISTORY. 333 

was settled at Petersburg, by negotiation, after the accession of the 
emperor Alexander, and attended with concessions on the part of the 
Baltic powers, of singular importance, though less complete than 
they might have been, owing to the counter concessions of Britain. 
Thus, though it was decided' that enemy's property embarked on 
board neutral ships, should be liable to confiscation, and that the 
right of searching merchant ships, even under convoy of a ship of 
war, should be recognized, yet, it was at the same time determined 
that arms and ammunition only should be considered as contraband, 
and that the right of searching merchant ships under convoy should 
appertain exclusively to vessels belonging to the royal navy. If not 
entirely decisive, however, the stipulations of this celebrated con- 
vention highly deserve to be looked up to as a proper standard of 
the rights of neutrality. 

31. During the contest that arose with England, out of this con- 
federacy of the nothern powers, the king of Prussia, one of the con- 
tracting parties, saw fit to take possession of the king of Great Brit- 
ain's electoral states of Hanover, but on U» change of affairs in 
Russia, was speedily induced to restore them. 

32. By the treaty of peace concluded at Luueville, between the 
emperor of Germany and France, February 9, 1801, England was 
left without an ally, and a change of ministry having taken place 
about the same time, may be said to have laid the foundation for 
more serious negotiations for peace, on the part of England and 
France, than had hitherto taken place since the commencement of 
the revolution. Nothing,* however, seemed to hasten it so much 
as the defeat of the French army in Egypt, and the settlement of 
the differences between England and the Baltic powers, which 
enabled her to negotiate with more advantage, and greatly lower- 
ed the spirit of the French government. Preliminaries were signed 
on the first of October, 1,801, and a definitive treaty concluded at 
Amiens, between Great Britain and the French republic, Spain and 
Holland, on the 25th of March, 1,802. By this treaty, England 
obtained Ceylon from the Dutch, and Trinidad from the Spaniards, 
relinquishing all her other conquests ; Malta being given back to 
the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, under the guarantee of the 
principal powers of Europe. 



SECTION XIV. 

FRANCE, FROM THE DEATH OF THE KING AND QUEEN, 
AND OVERTHROW OF THE GIRONDIST OR BRISSOTINE 
PARTY, 1,793, TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DIREC- 
TORY, 1,795. 

1. The situation of France, towards the close of the year 1,793, 
was deplorable in the extreme. It lay at the mercy of a faction, 
not merely blood-thirsty, but which nothing but blood would satis- 
/. The jacobins, or Robespierrean party, determined to root out 
every thing that could, by the remotest implication, be denounced 
as adverse to their plans, procured a decree to be passed, exceed- 
ing every thing that can be conceived in atrocity. Such was the 
■ Loi sur les suspects," passed in September, by which their agents 



334 MODERN HISTORY 

in all parts of the country were empowered to arrest, imprison, 
and thereby doom to destruction, whomsoever suspicion in any 
manner attached to, not merely as principals, but as connected with 
principals, however unavoidably, naturally, or accidentally. One 
article alone will explain the rest, The following are the persons 
denounced in the 5th : — All of the ancient class of nobility ; all hus- 
bands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, or daughters, brothers, sisters, 
or agents of emigrants, who shall not have constantly manifested 
an attachment to the revolution. The queen, the twenty-two victims 
of the Girondist party, and general Custine, may be considered as 
among the earliest and most distinguished persons that fell under 
the power of this horrible faction. The due d'Orleans, though not 
belonging to the Girondist party, was denounced by Robespierre 
himself, as connected with them, and publicly executed on the 6th 
of November ; but his life and conduct, both public and private, had 
been such, that he fell totally unregretted. It would be vain to 
attempt to relate the many dreadful events which marked this bloody 
period. It is to be hoped history will never again have to record 
such complicated cruelties and miseries, such premeditated murders, 
such studied torments, mental and bodily. 

2. On the 17th of November, of this" memorable year, the cath- 
olic religion, (at the instance of an archbishop of Paris, Gobet!) 
was publicly abjured by the convention, and decrees past, amidst 
the most tumultuous acclamations, for substituting a religion of reason 
in its room. The churches were quickly despoiled of their ornaments, 
the altars destroyed,civic feasts instituted instead of religious festi- 
vals, and Liberty, Equality, &c. consecrated as objects of worship. 
These revolutionary and anti-catholic decrees were moreover 
ordered to be translated into Italian, on purpose that they might be 
transmitted in that most intelligible, and therefore most offensive 
shape, to the pope. The calendar underwent also a correction. A 
new republican form and era being adopted and established, to com- 
mence from the 22d of September, 1,792, the day on which the na- 
tional convention began its sittings, and royalty was abolished. The 
year was divided into twelve parts, of thirty days each, distinguished 
according to the prevalent seasons, Vendemiaire, September and Oc- 
tober ; Brumaire, October and November : Frimaire, November and 
December ; JVivose, December and January ; Pluviose, January and 
February ; Ventose, February and March ; Germinal, March and 
April ; Floreal, April and May ; Prairial, May and June ; Messidor. 
June and July; Thermidor, July and August; Fructidor, August and 
September. The Sabbath was abolished, and five complimentary 
days added, all commemorative of the revolution. Each month was 
divided into three decades, and a respite from labour allowed on 
every tenth day. 

3. It was not possible to suppose that those who ruled during 
this dark u reign of terror," could long be suffered to retain their 

Eower and station in the republic. Fortunately for the good of 
uman society, their very crimes rendered them jealous and sus- 
picious of each other, so that before many months had passed, 
ifter the execution of the queen and the Brissotines, the earth was 
rid of such monsters, proscribed and driven to the scaffold by their 
own friends and associates in wickedness ; Robespierre, from whom 
the faction chiefly took its denomination, being at length accused, 
condemned, and executed, in the course of a few hours in the month 
of July, 1,794, to the satisfaction of the whole civilized world. Be- 



MODERN HISTORY. 336 

fore this great day of retribution, however, one moie victim of roy- 
alty was brought to the scaffold, whose sole offence must have been 
the heroic display she had made, in her constant attendance upon 
the king, her brother, and his most unhappy family, of every amia- 
ble virtue that could adorn a woman. The princess Elizabeth, who 
had continued in the temple, with the two children of the unhappy 
Lewis XVI., from the period of his execution, was brought before 
the revolutionary tribunal, accused of " accompanying the late king 
when he attempted his escape ;" of having " attended upon and ad- 
ministered help to the wounded in the conflict with the guards ;" 
and of " having encouraged her infant nephew, Lewis XVII., to en- 
tertain hopes of ascending the throne of his father ;" and upon these 
charges sentenced to die, May 10, 1,794, and executed without pity 
or remorse 

4. It was during the year 1,793, that Napoleon Buonaparte, a na 
tive of Corsica, had first an opportunity of distinguishing himself in 
the French army, being employed in the direction of the artillery at 
the siege of Toulon, which had fallen for a short time into the hands 
of the English. Hitherto the war against the powers in opposition 
to France, had been carried on in a most desultory and extraordinary 
manner, with more success certainly on the part of the Frencn than 
could have been expected, from the extraordinary condition and cir- 
cumstances of their armies, and the strange state of responsibility in 
which theii commanders were placed by their rulers at home. 
Some of their generals were compelled to desert, many were pro 
scribed, and many, after displaying the utmost valour in the tiela, 
were actually brought to the scaffold. Nevertheless, the impulse 
given to the revolutionary army, by the circumstances of their coun* 
try, aided by mistakes and jealousies on the part of their opponents, 
enabled it to combat effectually against much better organized 
troops, and to resist the attacks that were made upon it in all quar- 
ters ; for in addition to the Austrians and Prussians, Sardinians, Eng- 
lish and Spanish, in La Vendee and other departments, a civil war 
prevailed, where many acts of heroism, indeed, were displayed 
by a brave, but unsuccessful band of royalists, who ultimately 
paid dear for their revolt, by the most horrid and disgraceful punish- 
ments. 

5. The French revolution had now attained that pitch of extrav- 
agance and disorder, which left no hopes of any check or termi- 
nation, but that which actually ensued, namely, a military despo- 
tism. According to the remarks of one of the ablest members of the 
first national assembly, one who was sacrificed at the period we 
have been treating of, in a way the most treacherous and revolting 
to every feeling mind, the French revolution being undertaken not 
for the sake of men, but for the sake of opinion, had no distinct 
leader, no Cromwell or Fairfax. All were leaders, all institutors, 
all equally interested in the course of affairs. Such a revolution, 
he observes, must be commenced by all, but he was sagacious 
enough to foresee that it would probably be terminated by one. All, 
however, for a certain time, being leaders and institutors, nothing 
could ensue from such a state of things, but continual struggles to be 
uppermost ; continual denunciations and proscriptions of rival parties; 
and a strange succession of new constitutions, and new forms of gov- 
ernment, as any opening seemed to occur for bringing things to a 
settlement 

6. The death of Robespierre, and of many of his accomplices, 



336 MODERN HISTORY. 

clearly afforded snch an opening, if not for settling, at least lor 
ameliorating things ; but for some time the convention and the na- 
tion seemed to be in too great a surprise and consternation to pro- 
ceed with any method to so desirable an end, The former having 
had its origin in the days of anarchy and confusion, seemed little 
prepared to defend or support its own dignity, but the cry of hu- 
manity began again to be raised, and to be heard, and in no long 
course of time after the defeat of Robespierre, the jacobin club, 
from which had emanated all the previous acts and decrees, so- 
disgraceful to France, was abolished and dissolved, by a decree of 
he convention. The reformation of the laws and government 
gave greater trouble. The pain of death had been decreed against 
any who should propose to set aside the constitution of 1,793, and 
with this sentence hanging over them, all the people had sworn to 
uphold and maintain it. Tired, however, of the absolute and un- 
controllable power they had exercised, many members, even of the 
convention, sincerely wished for more limited authority. A com- 
mittee was appointed to prepare a new code of laws, and, in the 
mean time, processes were carried against some of the most violent 
of the abettors of the late tumults and disorders, particularly the 
commissioners who had sanctioned the most dreadful proceedings 
at Lyons, Nantes, Orange, and Arras. The execrable law under 
which they had acted, " Loi des suspects," was repealed, and a just 
vengeance directed against those who had been most forward to car- 
ry it into execution. 

7. At length a new constitution was framed, presented to the 
convention, and approved. Two legislative councils, one of five 
hundred members, and the other of two hundred and fifty, were 
to enact the laws ; the former to propose, the latter to sanction or 
reject them. The executive government was committed to five 
directors, chosen by the legislature, but whose responsibility was 
ill-defined, and their connexion with the legislative bodies not suffi- 
ciently provided for, either as a balance, or controlling power. It 
was not without other faults and blemishes, but it may undoubtedly 
be regarded as making a much nearer approach to order and reg- 
ularity, than the one which it was intended to supersede. It was 
formally accepted and proclaimed, September 23, 1,795.* 

8. This may be considered as the third constitution established 
since the first meeting of the states-general, in 1,789; great objec- 
tions were made to one article, which secured the return of a very 
large proportion of the members of the convention, to serve in the 
new legislature. Tumults were raised in the sections of Paris, and 
an attack made upon the convention, which, however, was at last 
rescued from the violence of the mob. Buonaparte, who was then 
at Paris, was appointed to act upon this occasion in defence of the 
assembly. 

9. Externally, the affairs of France may be said to have been at 
this moment in a high and extraordinary degree of prosperity. The 
campaigns of 1,794 and 1,795, committed to the charge of very able 
generals, Pichegru, Souham, Jourdan, Kleber, Moreau, and Du- 
gommier, had hitherto succeeded beyond their utmost expectations. 
The Belgian states, and the united provinces, had not only been 

* The directors being Reubel, Letourneur, Lareveillere-Lepaux, Bar- 
ras, and Sieyes ; but the latter declining the honour, Carnot supplied his 
place 



MODERN HISTORY. 337 

wrested from the hands of their defenders, the Austrians, Prussians, 
and British, but associated with the French republic in a close con- 

leracy. The stadtholdership was again abolished, and the stadt- 
hoider and his family obliged to take refuge in England. In the 
mean time, peace had been concluded with many of the belligerent 
powers, highly advantageous to France; with Prussia, Spain, the 
landgrave of Hesse, the grand duke of Tuscany, and others ; while 
the navigation of the rivers Rhine, Me use, and Scheldt, had been 
rendered free, in all their courses and branches, to the people of 
France. These proceedings, with regard to the Belgian states and 
Holland, were the commencement of a system pursued from that 
time on all the frontiers of the new republic. By a decree of the 
national assembly, the French generals were directed to proclaim 
every where the sovereignty of the people, to suppress all authorities 
and privileges, to repeal ail taxes, and establish provisional govern- 
ments on democratic principles. By this system of "''fraternization" 
as it was called, the subdued countries being formed into republics, 
tt republiques satellites,'' 1 as they were significantly denominated by the 
French themselves, were associated with France as subordinate 
states. Of the states first revolutionized in this manner, the Batavian 
republic took the lead, surrendering to France, without hesitation, 
the chief of her fortresses, and thus extending, and at the same time 
protecting her frontier. The mistake she made in thus welcoming 
the French, was but too soon discovered. The French levied heavy 
contributions ; the English took from them many of their foreign 
settlements, and particularly the cape of Good Hope, and the island 
of Ceylon. 

10 In the month of June, 1,795, Louis XVII., the unfortunate son 
of Louis XVI., died in the temple, under circumstances extremely 
suspicious, and very deplorable, having been some time in the cus- 
tody of a low-born drunken wretch, who did every thing he could 
to insult and torment him, and undermine his health. He was in the 
eleventh year of his age at the time of his death. His sister, the 
princess royal, (the present duchess of Angouleme) was soon after- 
wards most happily released from her miserable prison, whence a 
father, mother, and aunt, had been successively led to execution, 
and where an only brother had died a victim to cruelty, and perhaps 
poison. Her royal highness was exchanged for certain members of 
the late convention, who had been delivered up to the allies, by the 
generals who had incurred the displeasure of their rulers at Paris, 
or had fallen into the hands of the enemy by other accidents. 



SECTION XV. 

FRANCE, FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE DIRECTORY, 

1,795, TO THE PEACE OF AMIENS. 

1. The appointment of the five directors, was an act of policy 
on the part of the ruling members of the convention, who thought 
it better to hazard such a division of the executive power, than to 
give umbrage to the people, by the renewal of a first magistrate* 
though an elective one. As these new officers, however, owed 
their nomination to the influence of those members of the iate con- 
vention who were chosen to form a part of the legislative body ; a 
Ff 43 



338 Modern history. 

close union was soon found to subsist between the directors and the 
majoiity of the council. 

2. The council of ancients, consisting of two hundred and fifty 
members, at first appeared to form the bulwark of the new consti- 
tution ; having no share in the framing of the laws, they were able 
to interpose with the greater dignity in pronouncing their judgment 
upon such as were referred to them, and often exercised the re- 
stored privilege of the veto beneficially for the public. The judi- 
cial murders of the reign of terror were terminated, and the gov- 
ernment displayed, in many instances, a return to moderation and 
humanity, extremely desirable and praiseworthy, but in the south 
ern department, a system of reaction and retaliation prevailed, which 
it was beyond their power to control. An organized body of assassins 
kept all those parts of the nation in a state of incessant alarm. The 
metropolis was in some degree restored to its wonted gayety, but 
every thing bespoke, as might reasonably be expected, a mest de- 
moralized state of society. The stage became intolerably licentious, 
and the public amusements were disgraced, by a freedom of man- 
ners, and indelicacy of dress on the part of the females, beyond mea- 
sure offensive. Those whose nearest connexions had been doomed 
to the scaffold, could find no better mode of commemorating their 
loss, than by festive, meetings, called " Bab a la Victime" to which 
no one could be admitted but such as had lost a father, a mother, a 
husband, a wife, a brother, or a sister, by the guillotine ! 

3. Hitherto the prowess of the French armies had been mani- 
fested much more i-n the north, and on the Rhine, than in the 
southern parts of the continent; towards Italy, the Austrians and 
Piedmontese seemed to hold the French in check. Dugommier had 
Meed invaded Spain with effect; and by his attacks contributed 
to bring about a peace with that country ; but novv a new scene 
was about to open, leading to such a succession of victories and 
revolutions as it would be impossible fully to describe in such a work 
as the present. 

4. Karly in the year 1,796, general Buonaparte obtained (bein^ 
then twenty-six years of age,) the chief command of the army of 
Italy, as it was called. His eagerness to commence operations 
diew upon him some remonstrances. It was suggested to him that 
many things were wanting in his army necessary to the campaign. 
w I have enough," said he, "if 1 conquer, and too many if I should 
be beaten." The Austrian army in those parts was commanded 
by general Beaulieu, an officer peculiarly active and enterprising. 
General Buonaparte took the command of the French army on the 
3Cth of March, and between the 12th and 15th of April, beat the 
Austrian troops in three distinct engagements, at Montenotte, Mil- 
lesimo (or Montelezino,) and Dego. In the space ot four days, it 
has been computed, that the Austrian army was diminished to the 
amount of 15,000 men, being separated at the same time from their 
Piedmontese allies. After the battle of Dego, Buonaparte advanced 
rapidly into Piedmont, nor did he stop till he had arrived at the 
very gates of Turin. There he agreed to an armistice solicited by 
the king, who was ignominiously compelled to submit to his occu- 
pying with French troops all the principal fortresses of his coun- 
try. Happy to be allowed to retain the capital, he was also obliged 
to cede Savoy, Nice, Tende, and Beuil. From Turin, Buona- 
parte pursued his course into Lornbardy, and by the celebrated 



MODERN HISTORY. 339 

battle of Lodi, on the 10th of May, obtained complete possessior of 
the Milanese. 

5. Unwilling to enter immediately into the narrow parts of Italy 
in this stage of his proceedings, he satisfied himself with threaten- 
ing the pope and the king of Naples, till he brought them to terms 
of peace ; the former surrendering to the French republic, Bologna, 
Ferrara, and the coasts ol the Adriatic, from the mouths of the Po, 
to Ancona ; and the latter consenting to contribute largely to the 
maintenance of the French army, and to close his ports against 
the enemies of France. The dukes of Parma and Modena, made 
submission in time to save their countries. The grand duke of 
Tuscany had previously acknowledged the French republic, but 
was bidden very peremptorily to exclude the English from the 
port of Leghorn. The submission of all these princes and states 
to the overwhelming force of the army undei the command of Buo- 
naparte, was but part of the victory he obtained over them. In 
every step he took, he was careful, by new laws, treaties, and po- 
litical arrangements, to "revolutionize''' the countries over which 
he obtained an ascendency by arms, and to incorporate them with 
the French republic. Savoy, Nice, and the Milanese, were thus 
brought under his dominion, and ultimately erected into distinct, 
though subordinate republics. 

6. It was at the very commencement of the military career of 
this extraordinary man, that he adopted a system of plunder, which, 
for a long time, engaged the attention of the whole civilized world. 
In all the treaties concluded with the Italian princes, he stipulated 
that French artists should be admitted into their public galleries, 
museums, and palaces, to select as many as they might choose, of 
the choicest performances of the celebrated painters and sculptors 
of all ages, and cause them to be conveyed to Paris. French sentiment 
has dwelt upon the circumstance of the immortal Raphael, Titian, 
and Domenichino, having thus had it in their power, and in such 
critical moments, to pay the ransom of their native countries, over 
looking the sad violation of sentiment occasioned by the removal ot 
these precious pledges of their stupendous talents from the hands 
which had so long preserved them, and from places of which they 
had been so justly regarded as the choicest and most valuable 
ornaments. 

7. The siege of Mantua was attended with many severe conflicts. 
On the reduction of that important place, Buonaparte is stated to 
have thus addressed his soldiers : " The capture of Mantua termi- 
nates a campaign which has justly entitled you to the everlasting 
gratitude of your country. You have triumphed over the enemy in 
three pitched battles, and seventy inferior engagements ; you have 
taken a hundred thousand prisoners, fifty field-pieces, two thousand 
battering cannons. The country you have subdued has nourished, 
maintained, and paid the army during the whole campaign, and you 
have remitted thirty millions to the minister of finance, in aid of the 
public treasury. You have enriched the museum at Paris, with 
more than three hundred of the choicest and most valuable works of 
art, both of ancient and modern Italy, and which it had taken thirty 
ages to produce." 

8. Though we know from subsequent accounts of French victo- 
ries, that they are net always to be depended upon, yet there can 
be no doubt, that the above address does pretty fairly describe the 
extraordinary rapidity and extent of Buonaparte's first operations 



S40 MODERN HISTORY. 

in the field. The years 1,796 and 1,797, were indeed marked by 
such surprising instances of this nature, that they deserve a place 
in history, though the prudence and good generalship of such pre- 
cipitate steps has been reasonably questioned. Mantua capitulated 
on the 2d of February, 1,797, and Buonaparte pursued his course 
in the direction of the Austrian capital, leaving Italy behind him, 
with a view of penetrating to Vienna. Though obliged to fight his 
way, he succeeded, March 2, 1,797, in taking possession of Gradis- 
ca, which laid open to him the provinces of Goritz, Carniola, and 
Carinthia. 

9. The Austrian grand army was commanded by the emperor's 
brother, the archduke Charles, an able general, a great favourite 
with the soldiers, and who had combated the French on the Rhine 
with signal success. He was not, however, strong enough to await 
the approach of the French, who soon reached Leoben, only thirty 
miles from Vienna, where great consternation was excited, and the 
imperial family compelled to retire. As both armies, however, 
were brought into a very critical position, negotiations were en- 
tered into at this place, an armistice concluded on the 8th of April, 
and preliminaries of peace signed on the 15th of the same month, 
1,797. 

10. Before we notice the celebrated treaty of Campo-Formio, 
by which the peace was settled and confirmed, it may be fit to con- 
sider the state of those countries which Buonaparte had left behind 
on his march upon Vienna, He had made peace on his own terms 
(most advantageous ones for France) with Parma, Modena, Rome, 
and Naples. He had overrun Sa*'oy, obtained possession of the 
Milanese, and reduced Mantua. He had erected Genoa into the 
Ligurian republic, and the Milanese he converted into the Cisalpine 
republic, after having first given it the name of Transpadane, in 
reference to the river Po, and in contradistinction to the Cispadane 
republic, consisting of Modena, Bologna, Reggio, and Ferrara, con- 
federated in 1,796. He had passed Venice on his way to Trieste, of 
which he took possession on the 3d of April, 1,797. The Venetians 
had afforded an asylum to Lewis XVIII., and wavered greatly in 
taking part either with the Austrians or the French, not being able 
to calculate upon the issue of the contest. They had also fallen 
into domestic broils and dissensions, which gave the French command- 
er the opportunity he always sought, of introducing a French army 
to allay their differences. The consequences were, f hat they im- 
mediately seized upon the fleet, the Ionian islands, and, in fact, all 
the Venetian states, which enabled Buonaparte greatly to improve 
the peace he was making with the Austrians. Albania and the Ioni- 
an islands he kept to himself; to the Cisalpine republic he assigned 
the western dependencies of Venice, reserving for Austria, the capi- 
tal, Istria, Dalmatia, and the island of the Adriatic, in exchange for 
the Netherlands, and the duchy of Luxemburg. He had profess- 
ed to enter upon the Venetian states, merely to rescue them from 
the hands of Austria, but by this extraordinary manoeuvre, he not 
only delivered them over to the very power from whom he under- 
took to save them, but he obtained from Austria the very object foi 
the sake of which her English allies had refused to make peace ir* 
1,796. Such appears to have been the chief foundation of the cele 
nrated treaty of Campo-Formio, concluded between the emperor and 
the French republic, October, 17, 1,797. 

11. Previously to the conclusion of the treaty of Campo-Formio, 



MODERN HISTORY. 341 

the allies had lost three of their confederates, the dukes of Wir- 
temburg and Bavaria, and the Margrave of Baden, all of whom 
had found it necessary to purchase peace of the directory by heavy 
contributions. Such great advantages in its external relations 
were, however, far from contributing to the internal tranquillity of 
the republic. The first five directors, as might naturally have been 
expected, were by no means accordant in their views, or of equal 
talents and abilities ; and provision seemed to have been made 
for fresh revolutions, by the continual recurrence of new elections, 
both in the legislative assemblies and directory. One of the five 
directors was annually to go out, and one third of each of the le- 
gislative bodies to be renewed. The first event of this kind, as 
might be expected, revived all the jealousies of rival parties, and 
produced an explosion almost as violent as any that had yet occur- 
red ; the explosion of the 18th of Fructidor, as marked in the short- 
lived republican calendar. Le Tourneur quitted the directory by 
lot, and was succeeded by Barthelemi, who soon appeared inclined 
to join Carnot against Keubel, Barras, and Larevilliere-Lepaux. 
The three latter were for assuming a despotic power ; their oppo- 
nents were divided, some inclined to the restoration of royalty, 
others to the emancipation of the councils from the sway of the 
directors, Reubel and his two associates ; but as they formed a mi- 
nority, and their enemies were prompt in their measures of revenge, 
and had moreover the command of the military, it was not long be- 
fore the latter obtained the victory they sought. On the 4th of 
September, 1,797, the legislative assemblies were surrounded with 
troops, and at the instance of the three ruling directors, two of their 
colleagues, (Carnot and Barthelemi) several members of the two 
councils, many public ministers, and many men of letters, declared 
guilty of anti-republican mens ares and principles, arrested and impri- 
soned ; and, on the 5th, sentenced to deportation to the unhealthy 
and remote settlement of Guiana, in South America. The authors, 
editors, directors, and proprietors, of no less than forty-two public 
journals were included in the sentence. Some of the proscribed 
members found means to escape ; but those who were conveyed to 
Guiana, suffered dreadfully from the voyage; many died from the 
unwholesomeness of the place, some found means to return to Europe, 
particularly general Pichegru and the ex-director, Barthelemi, who 
were conveyed to England from the Dutch settlement of Surinam. 

12. Buonaparte returned to Paris not long after these disturban- 
ces, and was received with peculiar honours. The peopie began 
to look up to him for deliverance from the tyranny of three direct- 
ors; and the latter were as eager to remove him from the metropo- 
lis. In the midst of the honours paid to him, on account of his vic- 
tories in Italy and Germany, Barras, with great emphasis, nominat- 
ed him as the hero destined to place the tri-coloured flag on the 
tower of London. Troops were actually assembled on the coasts 
of Flanders and Normandy for the purpose ; but Buonaparte him- 
self, seeing the impracticablility of such an attempt, meditated 
more distant expedition. 

13. In the course of the year 1,798, the system, began so sue - 
cessfully in Flanders and Holland, of revolutionizing the countries 
into which the French armies should penetrate, was carried to a 
great extent. Watchful to seize upon every opportunity afforded 
them by internal dissensions, the French this year obtained posses- 
sion of Rome, Switzerland, the Pays de Vaud, the Grisons, and 

Ff2 



342 MODERJN HISTORY. 

Geneva, under circumstances peculiarly distressing to the existing 
governments, and commonly attended with heavy exactions, and 
the plunder of their churches, palaces, and museums. The pope 
was driven from Rome, partly by his own subjects, and partly 
through an overweening confidence in his own power and influ- 
ence. The Roman republic was proclaimed February 15, 1,798; 
and the finances being found in a bad state, the Vatican and other 
public buildings stripped of their contents. The Pays de Vai^i, 
whither the French had been invited, to protect them against the 
aristocratic despotism of the Bernese, was formed into the Leman % 
and Switzerland, after many cruel sacrifices, into the Helvetic re 
public, or rather into three republics, for that was ultimately the 
arrangement adopted ; provisional governments being in all places 
appointed, conformably, in a great degree, to the principles of the 
French constitution. No remonstrances on the part of the free can- 
tons could save them from the directorial decrees. An address to 
this effect, peculiarly pathetic and eloquent, from the cantons of 
Schwitz, Uri, Appenzel, Glaris, Zug, and Undervvalden, had no 
effect whatever in preserving them from a change of constitution, 
forced upon them by democratic France. The degenerate Romans 
had appeared to pride themselves upon emulating their heroic an- 
cestors, in re-establishing the republic, under the auspices of Gallic 
invaders. But the brave Swiss resisted to the utmost the rude dis- 
turbers of their ancient freedom. The modern republicans of Rome 
chanted a Te Deum, to hallow their deliverance. The Swiss sung 
tneir antiquated songs of patriotism and freedom, till the most dire 
necessity compelled them to surrender their established constitution 
to the dictates of a French directory. 
* 14. On the 5th of May, Buonapaite left Paris for Toulon, to take 
the command of an expedition, the real object of which has scarce 
ly been ascertained to this day, though it appears most probable, 
that he designed to join Tippoo Saib in India, and to subvert the 
British empire there. He was accompanied by many artists, natu- 
ralists, and antiquarians, and a large proportion of the army which 
had served under him in Italy. Malta lying in his way to Egypt, 
he failed not to take possession of it, partly by force, and partly by 
intrigue, subjecting that island and its dependencies, Goza and Cumi- 
no, to the French republic, June 12, 1,798. Its conquest had for 
some time previously been meditated, but it had lately been put 
under the protection of the emperor of Russia, Paul I. : it was treated 
by the French as ill as other place?, notwithstanding the utmost 
assurances to the contrary. The knights were driven from the 
island, many of the people compelled to join the French army, 
and new laws imposed under the authority of the directory. In the 
month of July, this year, 1798, a triumphant entry into Paris, of 
all the works of art collected in the several places subdued by the 
French aims, took place amid the acclamations of the people. The 
French fleet had narrowly escaped at Malta the pursuit of ar Eng 
lish one, under the command of Nelson : and after the subduction 
of the island, it was able to proceed, still undiscovered, to Egypt, 
where the English had already been to look for thern in vain. On 
the 2d of July, Buonaparte took possession of Alexandria, mooring 
his fleet in the bay of Aboukir. In less than three weeks from his 
landing, and after a severe action with the Mamelukes, called the 
battle of the pyramids, Cairo, and the whole of the Delta fell into 
his power ; but his triumph was lessened by the loss of his fleet, on 



MODERN HISTORY. 343 

the 1st of August, which, being attacked in the bay \y Nelson, was 
almost totally destroyed or taken, the French admiral Brueys being 
killed and his sh'p burnt ; four ships only, two of them frigates, were 
all that escaped. When Buonaparte left Toulon, his fleet consisted 
of 400 sail, including thirteen ships of the line, and it was rather 
increased than otherwise by his enterprise at Malta. 

15. The victory of Nelson gave a new turn to the war against 
the French. On his quitting Egypt, he carried his fleet to Naples, 
where the utmost joy was manifested by the court at the blow which 
had been given to the French preponderance. The queen invoked 
the Austrians to renew the war against France; and the expedition 
to Egypt and attack upon Malta having excited the czar, and even 
the grand seignior, to resist aggressions so unprovoked and alarming, 
Francis II. was not insensible to the call made upon him. England 
was not backward to encourage and aid such movements, in every 
part of Europe. The king of Sardinia, and the grand duke of Tus- 
cany showed themselves willing to join the new confederacy ; but 
the king of Prussia was not to be prevailed on to abandon his neu- 
trality. 

16. The Neapolitan court, which had been the foremost to ex- 
cite this new war, were the first sufferers from it. Having invaded 
the territories of the church, and even obtained possession of Rome, 
they were suddenly driven back by the French, the capital taken, 
and the royal family compelled to retire to Palermo, in Sicily. Na- 
ples was not taken possession of without a formidable insurrection 
of that extraordinary portion of its population, the Lazzaroni, with 
whom the king, whose amusements were often unbecoming his high 
rank, happened to be popular. This resistance provoked reprisals 
exceedingly distressing to the inhabitants, and almost ruinous to 
the city; the tumult, however, was at length appeased, and the 
kingdom of Naples converted into the Parlhenopean, or Neapolitan 
republic. 

17. The king of Sardinia, and the grand duke of Tuscany were 
also made to pay dear for the renewal of hostilities, both being de- 
prived of their dominions, as allies of the Neapolitans, and com- 

Eelled to abandon their capitals. The aged pope, who liad indeed, 
y many unwise provocations, irritated the French, a refugee in 
the Tuscan territories, unwilling to accompany the deposed princes 
in their retreat from Florence, and too confidently relying on the 
reverence that would be paid to his years and station, was actually 
arrested in his monastic retirement, and conveyed to Y'alence, in 
Dauphiny, a prisoner, where he died broken hearted, August 29, 
1,799. On the establishment of the consular government, his body 
was honourably interred, and a monument erected over him. 

18. But the directory, in the midst of these arbitrary seizures of 
states and kingdoms, acted with too little foresight, as to the effects 
ot the formidable confederacy of Russia and Austria. The French 
armies were widely separated, and many of the most successful 
generals, through a pernicious jealousy, disgraced and removed 
from their command. This disheartened the soidiers; and reverses 
were preparing for them, both in Germany and Italy. The Russian 
army, under Souvaroff, entered the latter country early in the spring 
of the year 1,799, and on the iSth of April was at Verona. The 
character and manners of this. northern general, made a great im- 
pression both upon the allied armies, and upon the inhabitants of the 
countries he invaded The French, under the celebrated Moreau, 



344 MODERN HISTORY. 

were obliged to fall back, leaving the Milanese exposed to the com- 
bined forces. After various actions, Milan was invested ; and, after 
a nineteen days' siege, taken May 24. Turin, Alessandria, Mantua, 
and Tortona, were reduced in the months of June and July ; and 
in most of these places, as well as in other parts of Italy, Tuscany, 
Naples, and Rome, great indignation was manifested against the 
French, of whose tyranny they had all tasted, and of whose friend 
ship they were already become weary. In a short time the French 
retained, of all their conquests in those parts, only Genoa and Savoy. 
19. While these things were going on, the councils at Paris be- 
gan to distrust the government of the directors, and to ask why 
Buonaparte was at such a distance. Inquiries of this kind were 
often put to his brother Lucien, who had a seat in the council of 
five hundred. A party was formed against the most obnoxious of 
the directors, and three found it necessary to retire. Another revo- 
lution in the government was evidently preparing. Buonaparte's 
absence and object seemed equally mysterious. It was supposed 
that he meant to open the old channel of trade between the East 
Indies and the Mediterranean. After the destruction of his tleet, 
as though banished from France, he appeared eager to establish a 
colony in Egypt, which, perhaps, was originally in his view, in 
carrying thither all that the arts and sciences of Europe could con- 
tribute of utility or beauty. All his works were superintended by 
persons of known celebrity for talent and knowledge of every de- 
scription ; but he was turned from this object by the jealousy ol 
the Turks, who, after the battle of Aboukir, (or of the Nile, as it 
is generally called in England,) were ready enough to join the 
English in attacking the French, confined, as it were, within their 
territories. Buonaparte, to be beforehand with them, marched into 
Syria, where the pacha of Acre, a man of most ferocious character, 
commanded. He succeeded in taking many fortresses, and for 
three months maintained a war in the very heart of the country, 
but his artillery having been intercepted by the English, who had 
also been admitted into Acre, his attempts upon the latter place 
were frustrated, and, being threatened on all sides, he resolved to 
return to Egypt ; there he received letters to inform him of the 
reverses in Italy, and the disorders at Paris, and to press his return ; 
but the Turks had landed at Aboukir, and taken possession of the 
fort, and it was judged necessary for his fame, that he should not 
quit Egypt without beating them. He hastened to attack them, 
and succeeded ; but not without many severe conflicts, and an eight 
days' siege of the fortress of Aboukir. Soon after this success, he 
embarked clandestinely for France, leaving the army under the com- 
mand of general Kleber, (who complained greatly of being so duped 
and abandoned,) and in a very extraordinary manner escaped all the 
English ships cruising in the Mediterranean. 

20. Buonaparte arrived just in time to take advantage of the 
distracted state of the government. The legislature was a prey to 
faction ; the directors divided in opinion , the jacobins and anarchists 
extremely troublesome, and not unlikely to recover their sway; 
while many departments were in a state of insurrection and civil 
war. Sieyes, the most wise and politic of all that had yet been in 
the directory, foresaw the necessity of a change, and wanted only 
some military genius to support his measures, and to whom he 
could confide his designs. Three other important characters ap- 
peared to rest their hopes on the interference of Buonaparte; 



MODERN HISTORY. 345 

Fouche, minister of police ; Cambaceres, minister of justice ; and 
the ex-minister for foreign affairs, Talleyrand Perigord. 

21. Within a month after the arrival of Buonaparte, a proposal 
was made in the council of ancients, to remove the legislative bod- 
ies to St. Cloud, and to confer on Buonaparte the command of the 
troops at Paris. At the moment the decree was passed, Buonaparte, 
accompanied by many of the generals who had distinguished them- 
selves under him, appeared at the bar, denouncing threats against all 
who should traverse the decree just passed. The council of five 
hundred, taken by surprise, made some show of resistance ; and Buo- 
naparte appearing amongst them, gave such offence, that he was in 
danger of assassination, amidst the cries of " Down with the tyrant !" 
"No dictator!" His brother Lucien, at that time president, was 
loudly called upon to pronounce a decree of outlawry against him, 
which he evaded by throwing aside his official dress, and renouncing 
his seat in the assembly ; after which, Buonaparte, in some alarm, 
having joined his troops, the meeting was dissolved, and violently dis^ 
persed by the soldiery. It was allowed however to assemble again 
under the former presidency, the Jacobinical members being excluded, 
when a new order of things, approved by the council of elders, was 
brought forward, decreed, and proclaimed. The directory was abol- 
ished, and three new chief magistrates appointed under the name ot 
consuls, while committees were formed to prepare a new constitu- 
tion. Eighty persons were to compose a senate, one hundred a 
tribunate, and three hundred a legislative body. 

22. The time seemed now to be arrived when the excesses of the 
revolutionary movement had prepared men's minds tor a transition 
from a state of anarchy to one of despotism. Popular liberty had 
fallen into disrepute, from the violences of the jacobins; and a 
strong executive government seemed indispensably necessary to re- 
store things to any degree of order and consistency. Though the 
.five directors appeared to be exchanged for three consuls, there 
was, in the last instance, no correspondent division of power and 
authority. To the first consul were assigned functions and pre- 
rogatives exceedingly distinct from those of his colleagues. "Unity 
of thought and action was declared to be a fundamental quality in 
the executive power." So far they were evidently going back to 
the first and best principles of monarchy. Hitherto, however, an 
elective and limited consulate was all that was contemplated. Gen- 
eral Buonaparte was appointed first consul, Cambaceres the second, 
and Le Brun the third ; the first two for ten, the last for only five 
years; Buonaparte, to say the least, having all the power of a king, 
though not the name, assigned to him, — a power approaching too 
near to absolute and uncontrollable despotism. 

23. In the first discharge of his new functions, however, he was 
careful to display a spirit of moderation, forbearance, and conciliation, 
in many popular acts at home, and overtures of peace to England. 
The latter were without effect, and a large subsidy being granted by 
the British parliament, to enable the emperor to continue the war. 
no time was lost by the French in endeavouring to recover their 
footing in Italy. In the month of May, 1,800, the first consul left 
Paris, to take the command of the army in those parts ; and after a 
most surprising passage through the mountainous parts of Switzer- 
land, and the capture of the town of Costa, with the celebrated fort 
of Bard, succeeded so far as to be able to enter Milan once more in 
triumph, the Austrians retiring before him, little expecting that he 

44 



346 MODERN HISTORY. 

could find a way into Lombardy by the road he had chosen. The 
Russian army had been withdrawn in disgust, after the proceedings in 
Switzerland, which had greatly offended tne czar. Previously to 
the entrance of the first consul into Milan, the French, under Masse 
na, had been compelled to evacuate Genoa : but the Austrians were 
doomed to suffer a reverse ; and though in the famous battle of 
Marengo, which took place on the 14th of June, they fought with 
the most desperate courage, and sustained an action of tburteen 
hours with great heroism, and the fairest prospects of success, the 
enemy received reinforcements at so critical a moment as to enable 
them to obtain a complete victory, which was soon followed by a sus- 
pension of hostilities^ solicited by the Austrian general. 

24. Negotiations tor peace were entered into at Paris, and the 
preliminaries were signed ; but, through the remonstrances of the 
English government, (as it is supposed,) the emperor refused his 
ratification, and the war was continued, both in Germany and Italy 
till the 25th of December, 1,800, when another suspension of hostil- 
ities being agreed to, at Steyen, a town in Upper Austria, soon led 
to the treaty of Luneville, between the French republic and the empire, 
signed February 9, 1801 ; by which the Rhine was made the boun- 
dary of the French republic, leaving the several princes dispossessed, 
in part or in whole, of their territories on the left side of the river, 
to be indemnified in the bosom of the empire ; the Adige, in the 
same manner, being fixed to be the boundary between the Austrian 
territories in Italy and the Cisalpine republic. The Grand duke of 
Tuscany renounced his dukedom in favour of the infant duke of 
Parma, created king of Etruria ; and the independence of the Bata 
vian, Helvetic, and Cisalpine republics, was recognised and guaran- 
tied by both parties. 

25. The English government had refused to enter into a naval 
armistice, though in danger of being deserted by the emperors of 
Germany and Russia, and had declined every offer of peace upon 
such terms, while Malta and Egypt continued in the hands of France. 
But after the re-capture of the former, and the defeat of the French 
under Menou, at Alexandria, in September, 1,801, both parties seem- 
ed more disposed than before to enter into negotiation, with serious 
views of bringing things to an accommodation. On March 27th, 
1,802, a definitive treaty was signed at Amiens, more favourable to 
France that to England, though nothing could exceed the joy ex- 
pressed in the latter country, on the termination of hostilities with 
the French republic. It was soon found to be no better than a truce 
of very short duration. 

26. The power of the French republic at this moment was enor- 
mously great, in addition to the former possessions of France, it 
had gained the Netherlands, and a considerable portion of Germany, 
Geneva, Piedmont, and Savoy had been incorporated with it ; Hoi 
land and Switzerland were rendered effectually dependent upon it. 
The Cisalpine republic, including the Milanese, the duchies of Mo- 
dena, Mantua, and Parma, and part of the Venetian and Roman ter- 
ritories, was placed under the presidency of the first consul, for a 
term uf ten years. Genoa, or the Ligurian republic, had been re- 
covered by the treaty of Luneville ; Spain was entirely at the com- 
mand of France, as well as Tuscany, under its new possessor, the 
vassal king of Etruria. It had recovered also its West Indian settle- 
ments, and acquired a considerable footing in South America. 



MODERN HISTORY. S47 



SECTION XVI. 

FRANCE, FROM THE PEACE OF AMIENS TO THE TREATY 

OF TILSIT, 1,807. 

I It has already been observed, that the first steps of the con- 
sulate were of a conciliatory nature. Endeavours were made to 
pacify the rebellious departments; the law of hostage, which had 
been in its operation extremely vexatious, was repealed ; and the 
list of emigrants closed. On the first change of the government, 
measures were taken to repress the violence of the jacobins, and 
awe the factious ; but the sentences passed on the most obnoxious 
were afterwards mitigated. 

2. Soon after the conclusion of the peace of Amiens, the first 
consul gave great satisfaction to the bulk of the ration, by restoring 
the catholic religion. On Easter-day, 1,802, the peace was ratified 
in the metropolitan church, with all the sanctions of the ancient 
religious forms, and a large attendance of new prelates. The basis 
of the convention with the pope had been settled and arranged in 
the preceding year, upon the following principles : — That a new 
division of the French dioceses should be made, suited to the re- 
publican division of the country ; and that the first consul should 
nominate the new archbishops and bishops, leaving it to the pope, 
as a matter of course, to confer canonical institutions. The bishops 
to appoint the parish priests, subject to the approbation of govern- 
ment. The pope to procure the ancient bishops to resign, and to 
engage not to disturb the alienated property of the church. No 
bull, rescript, &c, from the court of Rome, no decrees of synods, or 
general councils, to be received, or promulgated, without the consent 
of government. No national or diocesan meeting to take place with- 
out the same authority ; or any nuncio, legate, or vicar, to be allow- 
ed to exercise his functions. 

3. Such were some of the principal articles of the concordatum 
of 1,801. The pope seemed to be glad to make any concessions 
that might recover France from the depths of infidelity ; while the 
articles themselves plainly show that the first consul, in restoring 
Catholicism, had no intention to subject the nation, as heretofore, to the 
dominion of the Roman see, even in spiritual matters. A still strong- 
er proof^ however, of which, appears in the liberty afforded, at the 
same time, to the Lutherans and Calvinists, who were placed nearly 
upon the same footing with the catholics : and were even allowed to 
have three seminaries of education ; two in the eastern parts of France, 
for the Lutherans, and one at Geneva, for the Calvinists. Provision 
was also made in the new concordatum for the supposed case ct a 
protestant being chosen chief magistrate of the republic. 

4. On the second of August, 1,802, by an extraordinary expres- 
sion of the public will, the consulate, the term of which, in the case 
of Buonaparte and Cambaceres, had been limited to ten years, was 
conferred on the former for life. The original proposal had been 
only to extend the term ; but the people in the different communes 
being called upon to give their opinion, voted, almost unanimous- 
ly, for its being continued to the first consul for life, which wa9 
readily sanctioned by the senate. 



348 MODERN H1STOKY. 

5. This appointment was soon followed by a new form of con- 
stitution, calculated to throw greater power into the hands of the 
first magistrate, who was permitted, not only to nominate his col 
leagues, but to make war, form alliances, conclude peace, pardon 
criminals, and virtually to choose the members of the legislative 
body, by means of the senate, which was almost entirely under 
his influence. He was careful, at the same time, to put the govern- 
ments of the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics, and other newly ac- 
quired states, upon a similar footing, reserving to himself, in all cases, 
the supreme power as first magistrate. All these steps were so art- 
fully taken, as to appear to be the regular result of popular choice 
and deliberation. Liberty, equality of civil rights, and national 
representation, were professed to be the objects in view ; but care 
was taken to render each dependent on the domineering influence 
and directions of the first consul. It was at this period that the Cisal- 
pine was converted into the Icalian republic. 

6. Switzerland was not so easily to be brought under the French 
yoke, though its struggles for liberty and independence were finally 
unavailing. Many of the cantons displayed an almost invincible at- 
tachment to their ancient constitution, and resisted, in every way 
they could, the menaced invasion of their rights and privileges ; but 
the more they were divided amongst themselves, which unhappily 
proved to be the case to a high degree, the greater opportunity was 
afforded to the despotic ruler of France to interpose his offices to 
restore peace, nominally as a mediator, but really and effectually to 
the subjugation of the country, which, when reduced, was in mockery 
declared to be free and independent. Remonstrances on the part of 
the English court, are supposed to have had some effect in mitigating 
the rigour of his exactions, and rendering the new constitution pre- 
pared for them, more congenial to their feelings than might other- 
wise have been the case. 

7. In 1,802, by the death of the duke of Parma, and in virtue of 
a previous convention with Spain, the first consul, in the name of the 
French republic, took possession of the duchies of Parma, Placentia, 
and Guastalla, and incorporated them soon after with France. The 
only son of the deceased duke of Parma, by a Spanish princess, 
having assigned to him by the treaty of Luneville, the Tuscan states, 
under the title of the kingdom of Etruria. 

8. Though, by the above treaty, the indemnification of those 
princes, whose rights and property had suffered from the progress 
of the French, seemed to be left chiefly to the decision of the diet 
of the empire, Buonaparte found means to interfere to his own ad- 
vantage, favouring those most from whom he had the most to fear, or 
who were most likely to be subservient to his views. For the duke 
of Wirtemburgh, the landgrave of Hesse Cassel, and the margrave 
of Baden, he secured the electoral dignity ; while the indemnifica- 
tions were provided for by the secularization of many ecclesiastical 
states on the right side of the Rhine. 

9. It was soon found that, by the peace of Amiens, little cordiality 
was produced between the two nations. The first consul professed 
to be bound by that treaty only to particular specified points, and 
appeared through his agents, secret or avowed, to be preparing for 
a renewal of hostilities. He had some reason, it must be confessed, 
to be offended with the liberties taken with him in some of the pub- 
lic journals of England at this time ; and though it can scarcely be 
supposed that peace could be his object, yet he appears to have 



MODERN HISTORY. 349 

been provoked and irritated by the distrust of the British govern- 
ment and nation. So early as the month of May, 1,803, the two 
countries may be said to have been again in a state of war with 
each other. 

10. On this quick renewal of hostilities, the first consul had re- 
course to a most extraordinary measure, in detaining all the Eng- 
lish who happened to have come over to France during the peace, 
for business or pleasure, as a sort of hostages for the future conduct 
of their country. He also projected a powerful invasion of Eng- 
land, which had only the effect of rousing the latter country to such 
vigorous and patriotic exertions as entirely to frustrate all his 
schemes and intentions. A levy en masse was proposed, subject 
to the regulations of parliament. As another act of vengeance 
against England, an army was sent to occupy Hanover, though the 
king, in his electoral capacity, had determined to remain neuter. 

11. The first consul had now, for some time, exercised not only 
kingly, but almost despotic power, and artfully placed himself in 
such a situation of control and influence, with regard to all the 
public bodies, assemblies, and councils of the nation, that it is not 
to be wondered that he should have aspired to, and obtained, the 
highest dignities it is in the power of a nation to bestow ; though, 
had he acted with less prudence and policy, nothing certainly could 
have occurred more surprising than the undisturbed elevation of a 
Corsican adventurer to one of the most splendid thrones of Europe. 
By an organic senatus consultum of the 18th of May 1,804, Buona- 
parte was declared Emperor of the French. The title to be he- 
reditary, as to his immediate descendants, and, in case of failure of 
male issue, granting him a further power to adopt the children, or 
grand-children, of his brothers. All laws were to originate with 
the sovereign, or to be proposed in his name ; and due care was 
taken, by rendering the legislative body and tribunate dependent on 
the senate, in the appointment of which the emperor was to have 
almost the whole power, to prevent the passing of any laws contrary 
to his will. The imperial title thus conferred on him, was acknowl- 
edged by most of the states of Europe, though not by England. 

12. This assumption of the imperial title, by Napoleon Buona- 
parte, and the subsequent confederation of the Rhine, led the em- 
peror of Germany, Francis II., to abdicate the Germanic empire, and 
to change his title to that of emperor of Austria, thereby securing 
the same hereditary honour to the house of Hapsburg, and at the 
same time, not entirely resigning his political relationship to the 
states and empire of Germany. 

13. On the 2d of December, 1,804, Napoleon was crowned, in 
the church of Notre Dame, with extraordinary pomp and splendour, 
having previously invited, or rather compelled the humbled pontiff 
of Rome to be present at the ceremony, and to anoint him. His 
empress, Josephine Beauharnois, to whom he had been some time 
married, was crowned at the same time. 

14. One of the first acts of the new emperor was to change the 
name of the Code civil des Francois, introduced under the consular 

fovernment, for that of the Code Napoleon. His two brothers, 
oseph and Lewis, and his two colleagues, Le Brun and Cambaccies, 
were declared grand elector, constable, arch-chancellor, and arch-treas- 
urer, of the empire ; and the dignity of mareschal was conferred on 
the most distinguished of his generals. But, in order to give more 
lability to his throne, or intimidate his enemies, under pretence of a 
Gg 



350 MODERN HISTORY 

royalist conspiracy, he had many eminent persons brought to trial; 
among others, the two celebrated generals, Pichegru and Moreau 
The former was, soon after, found dead in his prison, under circum- 
stances implying little less than a most deliberate murder ; the latter, 
an equal object of dread and alarm, and whose death was probably 
contemplated, was permitted, however, to retire to North America. 
It is scarcely credible, though it certainly appears upon record, that 
the French minister at Berlin was directed to move the king of Prus- 
sia to deliver up the unfortunate Lewis XVIII., then at Warsaw, and 
to send him to France, to answer for the concern he was stated to 
have had in this conspiracy. 

15. Having obtained the imperial dignity in France, Napoleon ap- 

E eared dissatisfied to be only president of a republic with regard to 
is Cisalpine conquests. Means were found to induce the constituted 
authorities of the new Italian republic to offer to him the crown of 
Italy, an offer he was quite prepared to accept, as though the whole 
of that devoted country had been already subdued. On the 26th of 
May, 1,805, he repaired to Milan, and taking the famous iron crown 
from the altar of the cathedral, placed it on his own head, denouncing 
vengeance against all who should dispute his right to it. Having 
done this, he appointed the son of the empress Josephine, Beauhar- 
nois, to be his viceroy, and agreed, that upon his death the two 
crowns should be separated. Soon after he seized upon Genoa, dis- 
possessed the doge and senators of their power, and decreed, that 
henceforth the territories of the Ligurian republic, as it was called, 
should be annexed to France. These rapacious proceedings at length 
provoked a fresh confederacy against nim, so that before the year 
was passed, not only England, but Russia, Prussia, and Austria, were 
in arms to resist his encroachments. Sweden had joined the confed- 
eracy, but retired in disgust. Such, however, was the dread of the 
power or vengeance of France, that several of the German princes, 
particularly the elector of Bavaria, sided with Napoleon, in opposi- 
tion to the emperor Francis. 

16. By sea, the power of the French and Spaniards combined failed 
of gaining any advantages over the allies. On the 21st of October, 
1,805, in the battle of 1 rafalgar, a complete victory was obtained by 
the British fleet, under lord Nelson, who perished in the action. 
There was a disparity in the number of ships, in favour of the French 
and Spaniards, of thirty-three to twenty-seven. On the continent, 
the course of the war was very different. The king of Prussia was 
dilatory in his proceedings, and even treacherous. Sweden had 
withdrawn. The emperor Francis employed an inefficient com- 
mander, if not worse, (general Mack,) and the Russians, who were 
more in earnest, were baffled by the unsteady proceedings of their 
allies, and distressed by want of provisions, sickness, and fatigue, 
After the battle of Austerlitz, in December, the emperor of Austria, 
whose capital had been in the hands of the enemy, solicited peace, 
submitting to surrender what had been allotted to him of the Venetian 
territories, together with the principalities of Lucca and Piombino ; 
and to acknowledge Buonaparte as king of Italy. Bavaria acquired 
a part of the Brisgaw and Tyrol. Such were the terms of the peace 
of Presburgh, October, 1,804. 

17. The succession of some of the German states from the empe- 
ror of Austria, had, in the mean time, produced changes that require 
to be noticed. The electors of Bavaria and Wirtemburgh were 
elevated to the rank of kings of their respective countries ; and 



MODERN HISTORY. 351 

Eugene Beauharnois, viceroy of Italy, son of the French empress 
Josephine, obtained in marriage the daughter of the new king of 
Bavaria, though she had been previously betrothed to the prince of 
Baden. 

18. The court of Naples, during this war, through the injudK 
cious, but natural, resentment of the queen, sister to the late un- 
fortunate queen of France, had the misfortune to incur the high dis- 

Eleasure of Napoleon, by admitting a British and Russian army to 
md on its territories. The French despot lost no time in pronounc- 
ing sentence on the rebellious neutral. He quickly made it known 
that the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign at Naples. The royal 
family was compelled to retire to Palermo, and in a short time after, 
Napoleon conferred the Neapolitan crown on his brother Joseph, 
much to the discontent, however, of the people, who for some time 
gave him great disturbance. Joseph was proclaimed king, March 
30, 1,806. 

19. The emperor of the French had another kingdom in view for 
his brother Lewis, constable of France. Holland had submitted to 
several forms of government, without obtaining that order and tran- 
quillity which was supposed to be in the contemplation of those 
who directed her affairs. It was suggested that a monarchy would 
remedy all the disorders to which she was exposed ; and it was hint- 
ed, too plainly to be misunderstood, that it would be agreeable to the 
emperor, if the leading persons of the state, not the community at 
large, would give countenance to such a change. So great was the 
infatuation, or timidity, of the persons to whom these suggestions 
were made, that they did not scruple to solicit the appointment of 
the emperor's brother, who declared nimself king of Holland ac- 
cordingly, June 5, 1,806. To the credit of the new king, it should 
be observed, that he soon fell into disgrace with his imperial brother, 
by being too lenient to his subjects, and by endeavouring to mitigate 
the rigour of the French decrees. 

20. In the year 1,806, Napoleon succeeded in subverting the 
constitution of the German empire, by detaching many of the prin- 
cipal states, chiefly of the western and southern divisions of Ger- 
many, to form what was denominated " The Confederation of the 
Rhine" by which the several princes consented to renounce the 
laws of the empire, to contract a federative alliance with the 
French emperor, and to supply him with troops whenever he should 
demand them. In consequence of this gross defection of so many 
members, the emperor, by a solemn edict, abdicated the govern- 
ment of the Germanic empire, absolving all the electors, princes, 
and states, from the obligations by which they stood bound to him, 
as their legitimate head ; thereby terminating, as it were, a gov- 
ernment which had subsisted for a thousand years, and been un- 
interruptedly confided to the house of Hapsburgh from the yeai 
1,438. 

21. It seemed as if every thing, at this time, was doomed to fall 
before the power of the Corsican. Prussia, which had hitherto 
acted a most unwise part, in neglecting to add its weight to the 
confederacy of 1,804, and even submitting to be cajoled into an 
alliance with France, became, in the course of the year 1,806, sen 
sible of her error ; but to no good purpose. She now precipitately 
entered into a war for which she was ill-prepared; with no sup- 
port but that of Saxony ; and having put her arnry under the com- 
mand of the duke of Brunswick, sustained two signal and almost 



35U MODERN HISTORY. 

fetal defeats, at Jena and Averstadt, laying the capital open to the 
advance of the enemy, who entered it in triumph ; and, being too 
well received and entertained by the people, did not fail, as in all 
other cases, to take due advantage of their willing submission. In 
the course of the contest, the Saxons were detached from Prussia, 
and the duke of Brunswick being wounded, and obliged to quit his 
dominions on the advance of the French, died miserably at Altona: 
Napoleon, in resentment, meanly refusing to suffer his body to be 
buried amongst his ancestors. 

22. It was during his sojournment in Berlin, November, 1,806, 
that the French emperor dictated that extraordinary decree, de- 
claring the British islands to be in a state of blockade, though he 
had no naval force capable of interrupting their commerce in any 
part of the world. By this decree, the whole trade of Britain was 
proscribed ; no intercourse of any sort was allowed to take place ; 
all British subjects on the continent were threatened with arrest and 
confiscation of property, and every port shut against English ves- 
sels, in Prussia, Denmark, the Hanse towns, Holland, Flanders, 
France, Spain, Italy, &c. 

23. The progress of the French, in the territories of the king of 
Prussia, occasioned fresh alarm to the emperor of Russia, and to 
the British government, and procured for Frederick that assistance 
which his former supineness and intrusion on the Hanoverian states 
might very reasonably have rendered hopeless. The king of Swe- 
den was also subsidized by England, to send an army into Pome- 
rania ; but all the efforts of the allies were insufficient to stop the 
career of the French. The Russians fought many severe battles, 
at Eylau, Friedland, &c, but were unable to prevent the French 
getting possession of Dantzic and Konigsberg ; losses so severely 
felt by the king of Prussia, as to compel him to conclude a separate 
peace, as a conquered enemy ; while Napoleon, with consummate art, 
not only persuaded Alexander to abandon the king of Prussia to his 
fate, but to form an alliance with himself, for the further spoliation 
of the Prussian dominions, and to concur in arrangements very 
adverse to the general interests of Europe, and serviceable only to 
his own family. By the treaty of Tilsit, July, 1^807, the emperor 
of Russia agreed to acknowledge the Rhenish confederacy, now 
consisting of many states, and Joseph and Lewis Buonaparte, as kings 
of Naples and Holland. He suffered the French emperor to confer 
on his youngest brother, Jerome, with the title of king of Westpha- 
lia, the Prussian provinces between the Elbe and the Rhine, the 
states of Hanover, and the territories of the duke of Brunswick, and 
landgrave of Hesse Cassel, while the greater part of Prussian Poland 
was given to the elector (now king) of Saxony, with the title of duke 
of Warsaw ; and by secret articles, as it has been alleged, most of 
the usurpations of the French, in all parts of Europe, were sanc- 
tioned and confirmed. During the whole of the years 1,806 and 
1,807, the German states were undergoing continual changes, 
through the overbearing tyranny of Napoleon. All the princes who 
joined the Rhenish confederation were rewarded with titles or ter- 
ritorial possessions ; all who favoured the allies, dispossessed of 
their dominions, and declared enemies of France. To particularize 
all these revolutions, few of which were permanent, would exceed 
the limits of the present work. 

24. Among other acquisitions resulting from the treaty of Tilsit, 
Napoleon recovered the Ionian islands. These islands, subsequent 



MODERN HISTORY. 353 

to the treaty of Campo-Formio, had been greatly agitated and dis- 
turbed, and it seemed difficult to know what to do with them. In 
March, 1,800, however, by a convention between Russia and the 
Porte, it was settled that Corfu, Cephalonia, Zante, Ithaca, Cerigo, 
St. Mauro, and Paxo, should be formed into one state, under the 
guarantee of the contracting parties, by the name of the Ionian 
republic. By the treaty of Amiens, 1,802, Napoleon engaged to 
acknowledge the Septinsular republic ; but, by the treaty of Tilsit, 
it was restored to him again by Russia. This treaty, in short, ap- 
peared to be dictated entirely by the despot of France. Prussia, 
abandoned by her Russian ally, suffered dreadfully. The king of 
Sweden refused to become a party to this memorable convention, 
and manifested a determination to resist, to the utmost, the en- 
croachments of the French ; but he had little judgment or prudence 
to direct him ; and he had not the means to contend against such an 
adversary as Buonaparte. After many ineffectual attempts to save 
Stralsund, and keep his army in Pomerania, he was at length 
compelled to retire, with the loss both of Stralsund and the isle of 
Rugen. 



SECTION XVII. 
SPA N AND PORTUGAL FROM 1,788 TO 1,814. 

1. These two countries are by nature so connected, that though 
their interests are, and generally have been, very different, and 
*he people little disposed to friendly associations, yet, with regard 
to the affairs of Europe, they have very commonly been involved 
in the same troubles, and never long permitted to enjoy tranquillity, 
while the leading powers of the continent have been engaged in war. 
This has been already sufficiently manifested in the history of these 
two contiguous kingdoms, during the former part of the eighteenth 
century, but has been rendered still more conspicuous by the events 
of the subsequent vears. 

2. Charles IV. of Spain, came to the crown in December, 1,788. 
when the French revolution was just beginning ; and it was not till 
some few years after, and in the midst of the reign of terror, that 
his kingdom became involved in the disturbances oi that great catas- 
trophe. The Spaniards, in the year 1 ,793, offended with the vio- 
lence offered to the royal family of France, had invaded the latter 
country, and taken the town of Bellgarde, little foreseeing the 
speedy and severe reprisals to which they were exposing them- 
selves. Early in the year 1,794, the French, under general Dugom- 
mier, invaded Spain, and succeeded, not only in beating the Spanish 
army, but in securing the occupation of many places of importance. 
These successes were not only available to the restoration of peace 
with Spain, but procured for the French, by the treaty of 1,795, the 
Spanish portion of the valuable island of St. Domingo, in the West 
Indies, and, in 1,796, an alliance with the Spanish monarch against 
England, — an alliance fatal to Spain in many respects ; her fleet be- 
ing beaten by the English in battle, off the cape of St. Vincent, the 
island of Trinidad taken from her, and retained by Great Britain 
at the peace of Amiens, and her commerce crippled and impeded 
in all parts of the world. 

3. Though she sought, by a large subsidy to France, to be per- 

Gg2 4& 



354 MODERN HISTORY. 

mitted to remain neuter, after the renewal of the war in 1,803, yet 
she was not long allowed to be at peace. In 1,804, the English, sus- 
picious of her close connexion with France, seized upon some of her 
treasure ships, coming from South America, with a suddenness judg- 
ed by many to be not strictly justifiable ; and, in 1,805, war was form- 
ally declared against Great Britain. But in this new war she was 
again doomed to suffer misfortune, her fleet being totally beaten by 
lord Nelson, on the 1st of October, 1,805, in the celebrated battle off 
cape Trafalgar. (See Sect. XVI., § 16.) 

4. During the year 1 ,806, Spain appeared disposed to break with 
France, had any misfortune befallen the latter power ; but her suc- 
cesses in Prussia seem to have intimidated Spain, and to have in- 
duced her, in 1,807, through the manoeuvres of Godoy, the Spanish 
minister, who had a view to the principality of Algarves, to enter 
into a regular treaty with France, for the partition of Portugal. 

5. Hitherto the latter country, since the elevation of Buonaparte 
to the chief magistracy, had been suffered to remain neuter. Ihe 
reigning queen having been declared insane, the power had devolved 
to the prince of Brazil, crown prince, in 1,799, who, in virtue of his 
purchased neutrality, had been able to keep his commercial relations 
with England, unmolested by the French, till the treaty just mention 
ed between the latter power and Spain. 

6. France was not long in availing herself of the permission she 
had obtained to march an army through Spain, for the subjugation of 
Portugal. Having made demands on the regent of Portugal, with 
which he could not, in honour, comply, it was declared that the house 
of Braganza had ceased to reign ; and, shortly afterwards, the French 
army, under general Junot, passed the frontiers. In these extremi- 
ties, instigated by the English, the royal family determined to embark 
for America. They set sail on the 21st of November, 1,807; and, 
on the 30th, Junot, with his army entered Lisbon. 

7. The state of Spain, at this period, was undoubtedly such 
as to encourage the most ambitious views of the French emperor. 
Nothing could exceed the weakness of the court of Madrid, or the 
confusion of the national affairs. At the very moment of the parti- 
tion treaty, the hereditary prince, Ferdinand, who had refused to 
marry the minister's sister-in-law, on the suggestion of the court, 
was arrested, imprisoned, and threatened with a criminal prosecution, 
for having secretly sought a matrimonial alliance with Buonaparte's 
family. This was followed by disturbances, and the imprisonment 
of the obnoxious minister, Godoy, duke of Alcudia, and, since the 
convention of 1,795, generally called the "prince of peace.'* 
Charles IV., harassed and distressed by these tumults, was induced-, 
on the 19th of March, 1,808, to resign his crown in favour of his 
son, now become Ferdinand VII. ; but he soon afterwards revoked 
his abdication, as forced upon him, and extorted by the dread of 
personal violence. Nothing could be more directly calculated to 
promote the views of Buonaparte than these divisions, whose con- 
stant policy it was, in all cases of premeditated conquest, to promote 
dissension," in order to be called in as an arbitrator or mediator, 
which was the case in this instance. After Buonaparte had been 
baffled in his hopes of compelling the king and queen to emigrate, 
through the resistance of the people of Spain to such a measure, 
the whole royal family were invited to repair to Bayonne, to confer 
on the state of affairs ; an invitation the most insidious, but which 
had its effect. On the 14th of April Buonaparte arrived there; Fer- 



MODERN HISTORY. 355 

dinand on the 20th, and on the 1st of May, Charles IV. and his queen, 
after the favourite, Godoy, had been released, on their application to 
Buonaparte. 

S. The transactions at Bayonne exceeded almost every thing to 
be met with in any preceding history. The persons invited were 
exactly those whom Buonaparte would have been glad to have seen 
driven into his toils- in this case they were weak enough to go 
thither of their own accord. Having the two kings completely in 
his power and beyond the frontier of Spain, he compelled Charles 
to resume his authority, on purpose that he might resign it into the 
hands of the French, proposing, on the terms of an equivalent else- 
where, a similar act of renunciation on the part of Ferdinand; 
which the latter indignantly refusing, was at once declared to be 
excluded from all he had, and all he might have had, and even 
threatened with the loss of liberty. This so intimidated the degrad- 
ed prince, that at length he unconditionally resigned his royal digni- 
ty, first into the hands of his father, and through him, into those of 
Buonaparte, who soon obtained, though in a manner the most extra- 
ordinary, the consent of most of the principal personages of the state, 
as well as of the constituted authorities, to the appointment of his 
brother Joseph, then king of Naples, to the vacant Spanish throne, 
and to render it hereditary in the family of the usurper. In the 
mean while, Ferdinand was sent to Valancey, and afterwards to Fon- 
tainebleau, as a prisoner, and Charles and his queen to Compiegne : 
their joint abdication of the Spanish crown was publicly announced 
at Madrid on the 20th of May, to the great disgust of the Spanish 
people in general, who soon resolved to be revenged for the horrid 
indignities they were made to undergo. 

9. In the course of the very month in which all the transactions 
at Bayonne took place, and Joseph Buonaparte entered the capital 
of Spain as king, the national resentment was manifested by a gen- 
eral rising, and insurrection in all the principal provinces; but it 
was first in Andalusia that any thing like an organized government 
was formed for the conduct of the war, on the part of the patriots ; 
there, a provincial junta, or council of magistrates, inhabitants, 
and constituted authorities, was formed, at Seville, which led to 
other conventions of the same nature, in places least molested by 
the French, and in all of these Ferdinand VII. was proclaimed king, 
and war openly denounced against the French, accompanied with 
proclamations and manifestoes, highly creditable to the good sense, 
spirit, ardour, and patriotism of the Spanish nation, and expressed 
in terms very different from the language to which the French ty- 
rant had been accustomed. Joseph Buonaparte entered Spain on 
the 9th of July, 1,803, escorted by four thousand Italian troops, and 
followed by upwards of one hundred carriages, conveying his suite 
and the members of the junta assembled at Bayonne, to assist at hia 
inauguration. He was ill received, or rather sullenly treated by the 
inhabitants, on his passage to the capital. Joseph entered Madrid 
on the 20th of July ; at which very time the Spaniards obtained an 
important victory over a French army marching upon Cadiz, which 
were compelled to capitulate to the amount of fourteen thousand 
men, while the French fleet at Cadiz was seized by the vigilance 
and activity of don Thomas Morla. These successes on the part 
of the Spaniards, compelled the new king to retire from the capital 
to Burgos, after plundering the treasury and securing the crown 
jewels. 



85C MODERN HISTORY. 

10. In the mean while, it was soon discovered that the aid of 
other powers would be wanted, in order to rescue the kingdom and 
peninsula from the grasp of Napoleon. Application was accordingly 
made to the court of London, to the Swedes, and to the Portuguese 
and Austrians. The former paid a ready and willing attention to 
the call ; and the whole British nation evinced, in an extraordinary 
manner, the utmost desire to render effectual assistance to Spain, 
whose cause seemed to be justly interesting to every friend of freedom. 

11. While these things were passing in Spain, a similar spirit 
had arisen in Portugal, against the tyranny and usurpations of the 
French ; and the arrival of a British army, in the month of August, 
under sir Arthur Wellesley, (afterwards duke of Wellington,) gave 
timely effect to these patriotic movements. The relief of Portugal 
was sooner accomplished than proved to be the case afterwards 
with Spain. On the 21st of August a decisive battle took place at 
Vimiera, between the French and combined armies of English and 
Portuguese ; in which the former were so entirely beaten as to be 
obliged to evacuate the country ; and which they were enabled to 
do, by a convention concluded at Cintra, under circumstances consid- 
ered far too favourable, by Europe in general, and which was re- 
sented by the people of England. 

12. The evacuation of Portugal, however, at all events, set an 
army free for the use of Spain, which, at the latter end of the 
month of October, to the amount of twenty thousand men, entered 
that country, under the command of sir John Moore ; the emperor 
Napoleon having quitted Paris just about the same time, to take 
the command of the French army there. Unfortunately, the state 
of Spain at the moment of this first attempt on the part of England, to 
give aid to the patriots, was such as greatly to embarrass the British 
commander : he had been taught (or rather, the government at home 
nad been so) to expect a strenuous co-operation on the part of the 
Spaniards; in which he was exceedingly disappointed, while he 
continually received advice of the augmentation of the French 
forces, to an amount fir exceeding all his calculations : nor did he 
consider even his own army so well-appointed as to enable him 
to contend, in the heart of the kingdom, whither he was directed to 
proceed, with any fair probability of success. He was evidently 
dispirited with the prospect before him; and though a perfectly 
brave officer, felt himself so ill-supported by the Spaniards, at least, 
by those who directed the public affairs, (if not even deceived and 
betrayed,) and so embarrassed by want of money and other supplies, 
as to be compelled to retire. The retreat of his army, though un- 
happily disgraced by many irregularities and disorders amongst the 
soldiery, was conducted, in the face of the enemy, (Buonaparte him- 
self being sometimes present,) with singular courage and dexterity, 
till they reached Corunna, where, at last, the transports not being 
arrived, an action with the pursuing army took place, which 
terminated in favour of the English, though with the loss of the gal- 
lant, but unfortunate, commander, whose death was greatly lamented. 
After this action, on the arrival of the transports, the English troops 
embariced without molestation, and on the 18th of January, 1,809, 
set sail for England. 

13. Before sir John Moore finally determined upon retiring, he 
had learned that Buonaparte had recovered possession of the capi- 
tal, whicn, after the departure of Joseph, the patriots had endeav- 
oured to fortify and defend ; but it was surrendered to the enemy 



MODERN HISTORY. 357 

^rly in the month of December, 1,808, by the temporary governor, 
Don Thomas Morla. Spain was far from being subdued at the close 
of the year 1,808, though the aspect of things was alarming, and 
the French extremely confident of success. Joseph re-entered 
Madrid, in great pomp, in January, 1,809. In the mean time, Napo- 
leon had decreed that the inquisition should be abolished, many mon- 
asteries suppressed, and the feudal privileges abrogated. 

14. After the affair of Corunna, the French army under general 
Soult, (duke of Dalmatia,) invaded Portugal again, and was able 
to get possession of Oporto ; while another army, under general 
Victor, threatened Lisbon. It was at this moment that fresh troops 
arrived from England, under the command of sir Arthur Wellesley, 
who quickly recovered Oporto, and then turning against Victor, 
once more relieved Portugal from the presence of the French. In 
Tune he entered Spain, and by the 20th of July was in a situation 
to threaten Madrid ; on the 27th and 28th, at Talavera del Reyna, 
he was attacked by the French under Joseph Buonaparte, assisted 
by four marshals ; but was able, in conjunction with the Spaniards, 
after a very hard fought battle, to repel them with great loss. 
Though this victory was not attended with any immediate advan- 
tages, and would appear to have been rather rashly hazarded, the 
British general, for his great skill and conduct during the action, 
was raised to the peerage by the title of viscount Wellington of 
Talavera. 

15. Though a central junta had been appointed in 1,808, to give 
consistency and strength to the proceedings of the patriots, they 
were still ill-prepared either to contend against the enemy a»one, 
or conjointly with the British. In the battle of Talavera, and after- 
wards, their movements had rather embarrassed than assisted the 
operations of the latter. It would have been well if the Spaniards, 
from the first, could have been prevailed upon to appoint lord Wel- 
lington generalissimo of all the forces acting against the French. 
The latter, however, were much harassed by a sort of desultory 
war, carried on by guerilla parties, who intercepted their supplies, 
and without attempting any regular engagement, (for which, indeed, 
they were unfit,) were continually attacking them in the way of 
ambuscade and surprise ; for which their superior knowledge of the 
country evidently gave them great advantages. 

16. It is not to be wondered that the extraordinary situation of 
Spain should occasion great embarrassment in the management of 
the war. In the place of the supreme central junta of 1,808, a 
regency had been appointed, and the cortes assembled, but without 
sufficient effect. The Spanish armies acted without system, and the 
nation at large manifested a jealousy of their English allies, which 
prevented such a co-operation as might have brought the whole under 
one command, to the evident advantage of the cause, in which they 
must have been, though with different degrees of zeal and judgment, 
equally interested. This distrust on the part of the Spaniards ex- 
posed them also, it is to be feared, to treatment far from conciliatory 
on the part of the English. The war which was renewed between 
France and Austria, in 1,809, drew the attention of Napoleon in 
some degree from Spain : but those differences being soon adjusted, 
early in the year 1.810, powerful reinforcements were sent from 
France to the Peninsula, to reconquer Portugal, and w drive the Eng- 
lish into the sea." What has been said of Spain is by no means ap- 
plicable to Portugal : in the latter country, not only a better spirit 



S58 MODERN HISTORY. 

was manifested, but the army being placed under British command, 
and regularly organized, by general lord Beresford, was soon render- 
ed capable of affording very effectual aid and assistance. 

17. During the whole of the years 1,810 and 1,811, the contend- 
ing armies were occupied in striving to gain advantages over each 
other, which called forth all the skill and judgment appertaining 
to the science of war. The detail, however, of the several actions 
which took place, of the investment and capture of the strong holds 
of the two portions of the Peninsula, do not belong to such a work 
as the present. It was not till the summer of 1,812, and after the 
victory gained by lord Wellington over the French under marshal 
Marmont, in the battle of Salamanca, that the total expulsion of the 
French, and overthrow of the throne of Joseph, became a matter of 
little doubt. The battle of Salamanca may be said to have opened 
the gates of Madrid once more to the patriots and allied army, and 
restored the Spanish crown to Ferdinand. The battle was fought on 
the 22d of July. On the 30th, lord Wellington entered Valladolid, 
the enemy retiring before him; and on the 12th of August, Madrid 
surrendered to the British arms. Joseph and hiu suite having pre- 
viously quitted it. Lord Wellington was received in the capital with 
the acclamations justly due to the liberator of Spain ; but had the 
Spaniards themselves used the exertions they might have done, 
^Napoleon being at this time engaged in Russia,) the Peninsula 
might probably have been sooner delivered from the French, after 
the recovery of the capital, than proved to be the case. 

18. The latter made a stand at Burgos, which was invested by 
the English, but after a siege of more than a month, abandoned with 
considerable loss ; the British forces being once more obliged to re 
tire as far as Ciudad Rodrigo, on the frontiers of Portugal. The 
Spaniards, however, at length appeared to be roused to a proper 
sense of their situation, and wisely confided to lord Wellington the 
termination of this protracted war. In December, 1,812, he was 
appointed generalissimo, and distinguished by extraordinary powers. 

19. It seemed now to be practicable to end, by a decisive ac- 
tion, the contest for the possession of Spain ; and lord Wellington 
lost no time in seeking the opportunity. He took the field in the 
middle of the month of May, 1,813, and on the 21st of June, brought 
the enemy to action on the plains of Vittoria. Never was a vie 
tory more decisive than the one obtained at this time by the com- 
bined British, Portuguese, and Spanish armies. Joseph and his 
troops were compelled to quit the field with such extreme precipi- 
tation, as to leave behind them fifty pieces of artillery, two thousand 
carriages of different descriptions, stores, provisions, and am immense 
booty, consisting chiefly of the plunder of Madrid, fortunately rescued 
upon this occasion from the usurper, who was present, and very 
narrowly escaped. 

20 After the battle of Vittoria, and the fall of the strong towns 
of St. Sebastian and Pampeluna, the British, Portuguese, and Span 
ish troops crossed the Bidassoa, and entered France. Early in 
March, the city of Bordeaux freely opened her gates to general 
Beresford, in the name of Lewis XV III., at the same time admitting 
the king's nephew, the duke of Angouleme. On the 10th of April, 
the British stormed the French entrenchments near Thoulouse. On 
the 12th, general Soult filed out of the town, under the muzzles of 
the British guns. On the 13th, news arrived of the abdication of 
Buonaparte, and the entrance of the allied sovereigns into Paris 



MODERN HISTORY. 369 

U is conjectured that the French commander knew of these things 
before, but in the hope of gaining some advantage over the invaders 
of France, concealed it. 

21. Before the allies reached Paris, Napoleon had released Fer- 
dinand VII , whose return to Spain was, however, rendered very 
unacceptable to many who had espoused his cause in his absence, 
particularly the members of the regency and existing cortes, with 
whose proceedings, in regard to the new constitution proposed for 
his acceptance, he expressed himself extremely displeased; they 
had previously refused to acknowledge a treaty concluded by Ferdi- 
nand with Buonaparte. He threw himself also into the hands of 
those who were friends to the ancient system, which, with extreme 
bigotry, he endeavoured to re-establish in its worst forms. From 
that time to the present the nation has been kept in a state of con- 
siderable ferment and confusion. By a revolution in March, 1,820, 
the cortes were restored, and the free constitution of 1,812 pro- 
claimed and sworn to by the king. The inquisition also was finally 
abolished: but the effects of these last movements remain to be 
proved. 

22. The old king, Charles IV., died at Rome, in 1,819. The bat- 
tle of Vittoria, which relieved Spain from the presence of the 
French armies, restored Portugal to her former independence. On 
the 20th of March, 1,816, the queen, Maria Isabella, died ; and was 
succeeded by the present king, John VI., who had been regent 
since 1,799, the seat of government being still at Rio de Janeiro, in 
Brazil. 



SECTION XVIII. 

FRANCE, FROM THE PEACE OF TILSIT, TO THE ABDICATION 
OF NAPOLEON 1,814. 

1. The treaty of Tilsit left Napoleon at liberty to pursue his career 
of vengeance and usurpation in other countries. He obtained by it 
such an influence over Russia, Austria, and Prussia, as to induce 
them to break with England, without any other reason ; and as soon 
as he had thus disposed of matters in those quarters, he turned his 
views to the Spanish peninsula, where a Bourbon dynasty still ex- 
isted. In three months after the signing of the treaty of Tilsit, he 
concluded the famous partition-treaty with Spain, already spoken of, 
in virtue of which, French troops were to be allowed to pass into 
Portugal, for the sacrifice of that ancient kingdom ; and afterwards, 
no doubt, in the views and designs of the French emperor, of Spam 
itself. 

2. Of his subsequent invasion and occupation of both countries, 
and of the war for several years carried on, before he could be 
compelled to renounce his usurped dominion in Spain, an account 
is given in the preceding section. On the 1 7th of December, 1,807, 
in the same spirit of resentment against Great Britain, which had 
dictated the celebrated decree of Berlin, declared the British isles 
to be in a state of blockade, the French emperor issued another 
decree, at Milan, (in consequence of the British retaliatory orders 
of council, November 21st,) by which every ship which should 
submit to be visited by the English, or consent to any pecuniary 



360 MODERN HISTORY. 

exactions whatsoever, should be liable to confiscation as a lawful 
prize; but his vengeance fell hardest upon Portugal, whose com- 
mercial and political relations with England so exasperated him, 
that, in an audience given to the foreign ministers at Fontainebleau, 
le openly declared, that if the regent of Portugal did not within 
rwo months conform to the continental system, and totally renounce 
ais connexions with England, the house of Braganza should cease to 
feign, Such was the haughty language of this extraordinary man, 
w the face of Europe, after the convention at Tilsit ! 

3. In a few days after this denunciation of the Portuguese dy 
nasty, the regent closed his ports against English ship9 of all descrip- 
tions, but not in time to stop the French armies, who pressed so 
closely upon him, that on the 29th of November, (see the preceding 
section,) ne was obliged to quit his European dominions for Rio Ja- 
neiro, in the Brazils, and on the very next day Lisbon was occupied 
by French troops under general J unot. 

4. The short-lived kingdom of Etruria was brought to an end 
about this time; and the queen-regent, late duchess of Parma, 
with the king, her son, obliged to depart for Spain, her native 
country. 

5. In March, 1 ,808, a decree was passed in France, ordaining the 
renewal of titles of honour, princes, dukes, counts, &c, and cre- 
ating a new order of hereditary nobility, as essential to an heredi- 
tary monarch. About the same time, Joseph Buonaparte was re- 
moved from Naples, and made king of Spain ; and Joachim Murat, 
grand duke of Berg, married to the sister of Napoleon, was declared 
king of Naples. 

6. The kingdoms of Naples and Italy being thus entirely in the 
hands of Buonaparte, in order to prevent their communication from 
being interrupted by any hostile power, he seized upon the pope's 
temporalities, for which Pius VI. ventured to excommunicate him. 
He had the audacity to remind the pope, in thus despoiling him, 
that the kingdom of Christ was not of this world ; though the only 
reason alleged for what he had done, was, that Pius had refused to 
declare war against England ; a friendly power, and one from which 
the pope declared he had never received the smallest injury. 

7. On the 9th of April, 1,809, war was renewed with Austria, 
and so rapid was the progress of the French, that after three severe 
actions at Abensberg, Eckmuhl, and Ratisbon, Vienna was compelled 
to capitulate on the 12th of May. The Austrians, afterwards, under 
the archduke Charles, gained some advantages over Buonaparte ; 
but, before the autumn was passed, a peace was concluded, at Vien- 
na, extremely humiliating to Francis II. To France he was obliged 
to cede the Illyrian provinces ; to Bavaria, Saltzburg ; to Saxony, 
the whole of West Gallicia; and to Russia, East Gallicia; he was, 
moreover, compelled to accede to the continental system against 
England, and to acknowledge Joseph Buonaparte as king of Spain. 

8. But as if these concessions were not sufficient to mortify the 
pride of the head of the empire, and representative of the house of 
Hapsburgh and Lorraine, the French emperor, to the surprise of 
Europe, demanded and obtained in marriage the daughter of Fran- 
cis II., the archduchess Maria Louisa, having previously been, with 
great form, divorced from the empress Josephine, with her own 
consent, for the express purpose of forming a connexion of higher 
hopes, and affording a prospect of an heir to his newly acquired im- 
perial dominions. The marriage took place at Paris, April 2, 1,810. 



MODERN HISTORY. 361 

9. Intent upon providing for every branch of his family, the 
grand duchy of Tuscany was revived by Napoleon, in K809, and 
conferred on his sister Eliza, princess of Lucca and Piombino, 
The grand duchy of Berg, vacated by the removal of his brother- 
in-law, Joachim Murat, to the throne of Naples, was given to Louis, 
his nephew, son of the king of Holland ; and on the 17th of May 
the pope's temporalities were declared to be incorporated with the 
French dominions, and the title of king of Rome appropriated to the 
imperial prince, neir to the French empire. The situation of the 
papal territories, between the kingdoms of Italy and Naples, was 
such as in hostile hands might be made use of to intercept the com- 
munication between the two ; and therefore the pope, who appeared 
friendly to England, was of necessity to be despoiled of his domin- 
ions, but to receive a revenue of two millions of francs. The new 
constitutional government was to be in full activity and force on the 
1st of January, 1,810. On the 14th of January, 1,810, the elector- 
ate of Hanover was annexed to the dominion of the emperor's 
brother, Jerome, king of Westphalia ; and on the 20th of March, 
1,811, Napoleon was gratified with the birth of a son, who, accord- 
ing to the arrangements already spoken of, was immediately digni- 
fied with the title of king of Rome. 

10. In June, 1,812, Napoleon, offended with some parts of the 
conduct of the emperor of Russia, who had begun to appreciate 
more justly the character of the artful and ambitious Corsican, 
once more declared war against him, having influence, besides, to 
prevail upon Prussia and Austria to join him. His advance towards 
the Russian dominions was most rapid ; but, considering the distance 
to which he was carrying his army, and the inveterate hatred and 
indignation he had excited by his bold threats against his imperial 
adversary, his subjects, and his empire, extremely rash. His power, 
it is true, was immense. 400,000, infantry, 60,000 cavalry, and 1,200 
pieces of artillery ; (Germans, Polanders, Dutch, Swiss, Italians, 
Spaniards, and Portuguese, being numbered amongst his troops; 
but nothing could exceed the anger and resentment of the Rus- 
sians. 

11. On the 9th of May the French ruler left St. Cloud; on the 
24th of June he crossed the Niemen, and on the 14th of September 
attained his grand object of entering the capital of the Muscovite 
dominions. But his reception was far from being such as he ex- 
pected, or such as he had met with in other capitals. The city was 
fired by order of the governor, and by the hands of the enraged in- 
habitants ; and the French had only ruins to occupy, in a latitude to 
which they were totally unaccustomed, and with all the horrors of 

Siberian winter before them. 

12. On the 10th of October, after having solicited an armistice, 
and proposed peace, both of which were peremptorily refused. 
Buonaparte and his disappointed army began their dreary and 
perilous march back to France. Nothing could exceed the diffi- 
culties and distresses to which they were exposed, from the severi- 
ties of the weather and climate, and the attacks of the Russians, 
from Moscow to the capital of Lithuania, where they arrived on 
the ICth of December. On the 6th, the emperor Napoleon totally 
abandoned bis harassed army to its fate, having quitted it at Smor- 
gonie in disguise ; destroyed the bridges by which he passed, regard- 
less of those he left behind ; and traversing Poland and Germany, 
made the best of his way to Paris, where he arrived at midnight, 

Hh 46 



362 MODERN HISTORY. 

December 18, having lost, or rather sacrificed, upwards of 150,000 
men, including prisoners, 167,500. 

13. It was naturally expected that this total defeat of all his 
projects in regard to Russia, together with the miserable condition of 
his army when it reached the confines of France, would have termi- 
nated his giddy career of pride and ambition : but in this the world 
was deceived. In the following year, he eagerly resumed hostilities, 
but manifestly to great disadvantage. Though he was readily fur- 
nished with a fresh army, amounting to 350,000 men, he had soon 
opposed to him not only Russia, but Austria, Prussia, and Sweden, 
subsidized by England. Several of the confederates of the Rhine 
ventured to abandon his cause ; and it became very apparent that 
the allied powers were more in earnest and more united now than 
on any former occasion. Many battles were fought in the course of 
the summer, with doubtful success, till, at last, the great " Battle of 
Nations," as it has fitly enough been called, took place at Leipzig, 
in which the French sustained so signal a defeat, as seemed evidently 
to prognosticate the ruin and discomfiture of the great disturber of 
Europe. This celebrated battle, or succession of engagements, 
took place on the 16th, 18th, and 19th days of October. Leipzig 
was taken only two hours after Buonaparte had effected his escape. 
The king of Saxony and all his court were captured by the allies; 
a French garrison of 30,000 men, besides 22,000 sick and wounded, 
with the French magazines, artillery, and stores. The emperor of 
Russia, the king of Prussia, and crown prince of Sweden, each at 
the head of their respective troops, made their entry into the town 
at different points, after the engagement of the 19th, and met in the 
great square, amidst the universal acclamations of the people. 

ust before the battle of Leipzig, the allies derived great advantage 
from the defection of the kings of Bavaria and Wirtemberg, and the 
grand duke of Baden, from the cause of France, and the consequent 
junction of 55,000 of the Bavarian troops ; and during the action of 
the 18th, a party of the Saxons, bringing with them 22 guns, desert- 
ed to the crown prince of Sweden, and desired to be led directly 
against the French. So much was the aspect of things changed with 
regard to the destinies of Buonaparte, who, on his return to Paris, 
had but too much reason to declare, (as he did in his speech to the 
senate on the 14th of November,) "Ail Europe was with us a year 
ago, — all Europe is now against us." 

14. The immediate consequences of the victory at Leipzig were, 
the dissolution of the new-erected kingdom of Westphalia, and the 
grand duchies of Berg and Frankfort. The dukes of Brunswick 
and Hesse Cassel recovered their dominions, and the prince of 
Orange was not merely restored to his stadtholderate in Hollandj 
but proclaimed sovereign of the United Netherlands. On the 2d ot 
December, 1,813, the allies passed the Rhine; the southern frontier 
of the Pyrenees having been invaded by the British and Portuguese 
in October preceding. 

15. Though four great armies of the allies were now within the 
territories of France, their work was not accomplished. The 
French generals, and Buonaparte himself, who, in a very affecting 
manner, quitted Paris on the 25th of January, 1,814, interrupted 
the progress of the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, endeavoured 
to prevent, in every way they could, their advance upon the capital; 
but all their exertions proved vain, though the attainment ot that 
great object was deferred for some months, It was not till the 3JSK 



MODERN HISTORY. 363 

day of March, that their triumph may be said to have been cc Deplet- 
ed : on that day the emperor of Russia and the king of Prussia, at 
the head of their respective armies, entered Paris in the most solemn 
and imposing manner. On the 2d of April, Buonaparte was formally 
deposed by the senate, and on the 1 1th he was permitted to abdicate, 
upon terms judged by many to be far too favourable. He was al- 
lowed to retire to Elba, (a residence of his own choice,) retaining his 
imperial titles, and having that island and its dependencies assigned to 
him as sovereign, with a revenue of two millions of francs. The duch- 
ies of Parma, Guastalla, and Placentia, were at the same time secured 
to the empress Maria Louisa, and her descendants, and provision 
made for all his other relations. Buonaparte, having previously had 
a guard appointed, set out on the 20th for the seat of his new and 
very reduced dominions, much exposed occasionally on his passage to 
popular resentment 

16. On the the entrance of the allies, they were careful in their 
manifestoes to distinguish between the French people, or nation at 
large, and the tyrant whom they had conspired to overthrow ; and 
evinced the strongest disposition to bury in oblivion, with becoming 
magnanimity and forbearance, the numberless insults and injuries 
they had received at the hands of the French, while under the do- 
minion of their now prostrate foe. They took no steps to force upon 
them the exiled family, but left the settlement of their government 
and constitution entirely to the senate and provisional administration. 
The Bourbons had been proclaimed in the south, and the count 
d'Artois appeared at Paris on the 13th of April; but the recal of 
the king was the work of the French themselves, as we shall have 
occasion to observe in a subsequent section. 



SECTION XIX. 

POLAND, FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE EIGH- 
TEENTH CENTURY TO THE TREATY OF VIENNA, 1,815. 

I. No country in Europe has suffered more from a faulty constitu- 
tion than the kingdom of Poland. No country has afforded more 
convincing proofs of the mischiefs appertaining to an elective mon- 
archy, the constant source not only of internal commotions, cabal, 
and intrigue, but the occasion generally, upon every vacancy, of 
foreign interference. At no era did Poland suffer more, perhaps, 
from this combination of evils, tlin towards the commencement 
of the eighteenth century ; nor has she ever since been able to re • 
cover her independence. The arbitrary, though not unprovoked, 
proceedings of Charles XII. of Sweden, in 1,704, when he deposed 
Augustus, and insisted upon placing Stanislaus on the throne, in despite 
of Austria and Russia, plainly snowed how little power a divided 
country possesses against the encroachments of an ambitious neigh- 
bour, and how naturally the interference of one such neighbour 
exposes the invaded country to similar measures on the part of 
others ; for Augustus himself had been previously forced upon the 
Poles by Russia. From the above period to the present day Poland 
has been exposed to a continual recurrence of such events ; and to 
promote the views of a combination of foreign potentates, kept in a 
state of internal disunion and distraction, constantly favourable to 
their ambitious designs. 



S64 MODERN HISTORY. 

2. Augustus, elector of Saxony, who was deposed in 1 ,704, and 
compelled formally to abdicate the throne by the treaty of Alt- 
Ranstadt, in 1,706, was restored by the assistance of Russia, after 
the battle oi Pultawa in 1,709, and reigned for the space of twenty- 
four year9, dying in 1,733. (Sect. I.) His reign was far from being 
an happy one : he offended the Poles by the introduction of Saxon 
troops, and by residing too much away from them in his electoral 
dominions : he lived in the midst of factions and conspiracies, being 
continually at war with the dissidents or anti-catholics, while he totally 
failed in his endeavours to render himself absolute, or the crown he- 
reditary in his family. 

3. The war which arose upon the death of Augustus, has been 
already noticed. Had the Poles been wise enough to remedy that 
great defect in their constitution, which rendered the crown elec- 
tive, they could not have done better, perhaps, than to have made 
it hereditary in the person and family of Stanislaus Lescinsky, the 
principal competitor of the house of Saxony, he being a Pole by 
birth, and very amiable in his private character : but they were nc 
longer their own masters; and they were divided amongst them- 
selves to such a degree as to render the interposition of some foreign 
power almost necessary to determine their choice. Upon this oc- 
casion the emperor of Germany, whose niece the young elector of 
Saxony had married, assisted by the Russians, overcame the French 
influence which had been exerted in favour of Stanislaus, and, by 
effectually removing the latter, procured the election to fall on the 
son of the late king, Augustus III. 

4. This king of Poland, on the death of the emperor Charles VI., 
1,~40, laid claim to the whole Austrian succession ; and not altogether 
without reason, had not the Pragmatic Sanction stood in his way, 
his wife being the eldest daughter of the emperor Joseph, elder 
brother of Charles V T I. ; the object of the Pragmatic Sanction being 
to secure the inheritance to the females, in default of male issue ; 
and on the demise of Charles VI., his daughter becoming his immedi- 
ate heir and representative, it certainly appeared hard that the 
daughter of the elder brother, who had been emperor, should be so 
entirely excluded. The hope of succeeding to some part, at least, 
of the late emperor's hereditary dominions, induced the king of Po- 
land to enter into a confederacy with Bavaria, Prussia, and France, 
against the house of Austria ; but he derived no advantage from the 
alliance : he afterwards changed sides, and at the commencement of 
the seven years' war, as has been before shown, (Sect. VI.) suffered 
most severely for having espoused the case of the empress queen, 
and entertained views against Prussia, which the wary sovereign of 
the latter country found means to detect, and cruelly to revenge. 

5. It was not likely that a king who owed his election so entirely 
to the interference of foreign powers, should acquire any thing 
like independence, or authority at home or abroad. During the 
reign of Augustus III. great feuds and animosities prevailed among 
the Magnats, while the king himself was entirely subject to the 
influence of Russia ; a circumstance so resented by his subjects as 
to induce them to avail themselves of the privilege of the Liberum 
Veto, to dissolve all the diets he convoked, and thus leave the king- 
dom almost without any government. Augustus III. died in the year 
1.7G3, at a period when the Russian sceptre had passed into hands 
well fitted to promote, in every vyay possible, (just or unjust,) its 
aggrandizement and splendour. Catherine II. is supposed to nave 






MODERN HISTORY. 36i 

had her eyes upon Poland before the demise of Augustus, and to 
have been prepared not only to set aside the son of the hitter, but to 
advance to the vacant throne some creature of her own ; she paid no 
attention therefore tc the solicitations of the house of Saxony, and was 
very shortly relieved, indeed, from all competition in that quarter^ 
by the early death of the new elector. In conjunction with Prussia 
she succeeded, but not without a spirited opposition on the part of a 
few Polish patriots, in bestowing the crown of Poland on count Po- 
niatowski, one of her favourites, and a Pole by birth ; a man of talent, 
and amiable in his disposition, but likely to continue, as well as his 
predecessor, entirely under her control. 

6. Nothing could be a greater mockery than the care which the 
czarina and the king of Prussia pretended to take of the liberties ot 
Poland, at the very moment that they were forcing upon the nation 
a king of their own choice and nomination. So far from trying 
to amend their faulty constitution, and eradicate the seeds of future 
animosities, they particularly entered into an agreement to prevent 
the king rendering the crown hereditary in his family, or becoming 
absolute ; that is, in fact, i?idependent, or powerful ; for this was their 
great object. And when it was to be submitted to the diet to ap- 
prove their nominee, and declare count Poniatowski king, a Rus- 
sian army was sent to Warsaw, to support i\\e freedom of the election. 
The. choice of the diet of course was soon decided to be in favour of 
the Russian favourite, who became king accordingly, September 7, 
1 ,764, under the name and title of Stanislaus Augustus. 

7. From this period, the three neighbouring powers, Russia, 
Prussia, and Austria, the two former, however, most particularly, 
may be said to have been interested in the internal dissensions of 
that unhappy kingdom, which afforded them plausible grounds of 
interference, and which they could therefore have no sincere incli- 
nation to allay or adjust till they had effectually gained their own ends : 
the object of Russia probably was to maintain her own power and 
ascendancy over the whole country ; but Prussia meditated a parti- 
tion, which might put her into possession of Polish or Western Prus- 
sia, a district of much importance in every point of view. 

8. Whatever may have been originally the distinct views of the 
several parties, it is very certain that they derived peculiar advan- 
tages from the extremely unsettled state of the country, which was 
at this time torn to pieces by the contests and disputes between the 
catholics and dissidents, or dissenters from the established religion : 
the latter, who since the middle of the sixteenth century had ac- 
quired many privileges, were supported by several different foreign 
powers ; those of the Greek church by Russia, and the protestants 
of all persuasions by Prussia, Denmark, and Great Britain, all of 
whom were called upon to interpose as guarantees of the famous 
treaty of Oliva, 1,660. The diet, instigated by the court of Rome 
and heads of the church, judged it right to uphold the established 
faith, and Stanislaus, though his principles were more tolerant and 
liberal, appeared to take the same side, being jealous also of the too 
great power of Russia, of which he could not fail to be continually 
reminded, not only by the open favour shown to tne dissidents by 
Catheiine, but by the insolent superiority assumed by her general, 
commanding in Poland, prince Repnin, and the extremely arbitrary 
and sanguinary manner in which the empress sought to maintain her 
preponderance. 

9. In the mean while confederacies were forming in all pa. ts of 

Hh2 



SC6 MODERN HISTORY. 

the kingdom to restore, if possible, the independence of the!* 
country, (such at least was the object of the catholics,) or to pro- 
cure for the protestants all the rights and privileges to which tney 
laid claim, and of some of which they had been unjustly deprived. 
The latter, under prince Radzivil, supported by Russian troops, 
compelled the diet of Warsaw, in the year 1,767, to accede to 
their demands ; this hastened the grand confederacy of the catho- 
lics at Bar, in Podolia, in 1,768, whose object was to throw off the 
Russian yoke, with the aid of Turkey, who had been induced by 
France to declare war against the Russians in that very year, upon 
he occasion of the latter having passed their frontier in pursuing 
a Polish party, and committed considerable depredations. 

10. Though the confederate catholics had clearly the good of 
their country in view, yet such was the influence of Russia, that 
the king and senate were compelled by Catherine to declare war 
against the Porte, and so far to counteract, as much as possible, 
the efforts that were making to accomplish their own independence, 
In Austria, indeed, during this stage of the business, the confede- 
rates at Bar had a friend in Maria Theresa, who espoused the 
claims of the Saxon family, and who sent them both arms and 
money, to enable them to check, if possible, the domineering pro- 
ceedings of the czarina, of which indeed she had good cause to be 
jealous. But the time was approaching in which, notwithstanding 
the most striking and formal declarations to the contrary, Poland 
was to become a prey to her three more powerful neighbour's, and 
when all other feelings were to give way to that of duly apportion- 
ing and dividing the spoils of that unhappy country. 

11. It seems now to be pretty generally agreed, that the plan 
ct dismembering this unfortunate kingdom originated with the Ring 
of Prussia, or his brother, prince Henry; and that it was owing to 
particular circumstances that they were able to bring the two other 
parties so readily to acquiesce in their measures ol partition. Had 
Frederick himself been more rapacious, it would probably not have 
been so easily accomplished, but, in order to gain what he most 
coveted, for his own share, he appeared willing to allow the other 
iwo partitioning powers to acquire rather more than fell to his lot, 
both in extent of territory and amount of population. In admitting 
Austria to any share at all, he made no scruple to assert that his 
^lincipal motive was, that she should bear her part in the blame 
that must attach to so arbitrary and rapacious an act. 

12. Though the Polish king and nation were compelled to ac- 
quiesce in these proceedings of the three powers, they did not do 
so without remonstrating in terms the most striking and dignified, 
accompanying their remonstrances and manifestoes with an open 
appeal to the several states which had guarantied the integrity of 
Poland ; but all in vain. They obtained no assistance from foreign 
states, no abatement of their demands on the part of the par- 
titioning powers, and were at length obliged, by a solemn diet, to 
sanction this gross dismemberment of their country. In two seve- 
ral discussions of the case, however, in the senate, and assembly 
of Nuncios, the minority on the division was most numerous and 
respectable. In the former, the question was carried by a major* 
ity of six only, in the latter by one. The motive alleged by the 
partitioning powers, for this extraordinary proceeding was, that they 
were anxious to amend the constitution, to preserve the liberties 
of Poland, and to appease the disorders which had for so long a 



MODERN HISTORY. 367 

space of time disturbed the country, but they fulfilled none of these 
pretended purposes. They did nothing to amend the constitution, 
but imposed a new one upon them, fraught with those very 
imperfections, of which they might for ever continue to take ad- 
vantage. They perpetuated the elective monarchy, abridged 
more than ever the authority of the king, and continued the libc- 
rum veto, a sort of tribunitial privilege, exceedingly inimical to 
the peace of the country. So far from upholding, they trampled 
upon their liberties in every way they could, and promoted the dis- 
orders they pretended to remove, by encouraging, rather than 
checking, the licentious conduct of their soldiery. In fact, a 
greater act of atrocity, or a more barefaced mockery of national 
feelings, never perhaps took place, or was even attempted, than in 
the dismemberment of the kingdom of Poland. Austria and Prus- 
sia did, indeed, make an attempt to vindicate their claims to the 
countries they took possession of; but Russia scarcely judged it 
necessary to make any declaration to that effect. The archives of 
Prussia and Hungary were ransacked, and titles revived and in- 
sisted upon, which, to say the least, had been in abeyance for many 
centuries. How far this measure may justly be said to have affected 
the balance of power in Europe, is a distinct case. For a long series 
of years, if not of ages, Poland had been so ill governed, or so weak, 
as to have had little influence on that balance, though her situation 
seemed to point her out, and still appears to do so, as capable of ma- 
terially influencing or counteracting the operations of her many pow- 
erful and ambitious neighbours, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Turkey 
The worst consequence, however, arising from the confederacy 
against Poland, seems to have been the countenance thereby given 
to the partitioning system in general. 

13. It was in the year 1,773 that the division was finally agreed 
to, and settled, and even sanctioned by the Polish diet. Of some- 
what more than thirteen thousand square German leagues of terri- 
tory, the partitioning powers took a good third, taking at the same 
time no measures to lessen the evils arising from the defective con- 
stitution of Poland, in the portion allotted to the natives. It must 
be acknowledged, that they bestowed great pains on the improve- 
ment of their respective shares ; but no benefits of this nature, con- 
ferred on particular parts of the country, could compensate for the 
unfeeling depredations committed upon the whole. 

1 4. The following has been given as a fair representation of the 
parts allotted to the several powers, by the delegates appointed to 
adjust the respective claims. Other accounts, indeed, are extant, 
which it would be difficult to attempt to reconcile with the one 
we are about to give ; a very exact statement, however, may not 
be necessary. The Russian allotment consisted of Polish Livonia, 
parts of the palatinates of Witepsk, Polotsk, and Minsk, and the 
whole palatinate of Micislaw, containing a population of 1,500,000 
souls. The king of Prussia obtained the district called Royal, or 
Western Prussia, excepting the towns of Dantzic and Thorn, with 
a population of 860,000 souls. Austria gained a large territory in 
the south of Poland, comprising Red Russia, Gallicia, and parts of 
the palatinates of Cracow, Sandomir, Lublin, Bezk, Volhynia, and 
Podolia, containing a population of 2,500,000 souls, and the valuable 
salt-woks of Vielitzka, which produced an annual revenue of £90,000. 
This district was annexed to the Austrian territories, under the an- 
cient appellation of the kingdoms of Gallicia and Lodomeria. Such 



3M MODERN HISTORY. 

were the results of what is now distinguished by the name of the 
first partition of Poland. 

1 5. The little assistance Poland received to ward off the disgrace 
and misery of this first partition, the extraordinary apathy with 
which it seemed to be beheld by the other powers of Europe, left 
little hopes of her regeneration, or escape from the toils into which 
she had fallen ; nor indeed has she ever escaped from them, or 
recovered the smallest degree of independence. After the first 
partition, the object she had most to dread was some accidental 
disunion of the partitioning powers, who would be sure to wreak 
their vengeance upon her; and an event of this very nature seems 
to have been the cause of what has been called the second parti- 
tion, in 1,793. Russia and Austria, in the years 1,787 and 1,788, by 
too close an alliance, having given umbrage to the king of Prussia, 
he insisted that the constitution formed for Poland, in 1,773, was 
void, and offered to assist the Poles in framing a new one, which 
was completed under his auspices, May 3, 1,791. Had this consti- 
tution been able to keep its ground, Poland, so much of it at least 
as remained to the natives, might have recovered some degree of 
credit and freedom ; it was in a great measure the work of real 
patriots, enlightened and moderate reformers ; it abolished the 
liberum veto, and the elective monarchy, except in the case of the 
extinction of some hereditary dynasty; it rendered the person of 
the king inviolable, but gave him responsible ministers ; it provid- 
ed a representative senate, not much differing from the English 
house of commons. Unhappily, this good work found enemies 
amongst the ancient nobles, who did not like to give up their pre 
tensions to royalty, and who had recourse to the old and ruinou9 
expedient of inviting foreign help, always at hand to avail itself 
of the internal commotions of that devoted country. Russia was 
called in, by the confederates of Targovitz, and a renewal of losses 
and calamities ensued of course. The king of Prussia, so far from 
supporting the new constitution, the diet, or the king, as he seem- 
ed absolutely bound to do, by his own acts, eagerly seized upon the 
towns of Dantzic and Thorn, which had been specially excepted 
in the last partition, joined the czarina, in her efforts against the 
patriots, under the brave Kosciusko, and finally succeeded in pre- 
vailing over a country, which, from the enthusiasm and spirit dis- 
played on this occasion in her defence, deserved a better fate. By 
the second partition, in 1,793, Russia is said to have acquired 4,000 
German square miles of territory, in Volhynia, Lithuania, Podolia, 
and the Ukraine ; and Prussia, besides the towns of Dantzic and 
Thorn, 1 ,000 square miles in south Prussia, with all the Hanseatic 
towns. A third and last partition soon followed, in the year 1,795, 
between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, which may be said to have 
put an end to the kingdom and republic of Poland ; Stanislaus, its 
unhappy monarch, being removed to Russia, where he soon after 
died, February 12, 1,798, In this last partition, Cracow was given 
to Austria, and Warsaw to Prussia. From the resistance of the 
natives, who gained greater advantages in many engagements than 
could have been expected from the nature of their force, the slaugh- 
ter accompanying these latter revolutions was dreadful, and on the 
part of the Russians attended with circumstances of cruelty too 
much resembling what had taken place in 1,772. 

16. It would be difficult to describe the state of Poland, from 
the period of the last partition, in 1,795, to the treaty of Vienna, in 



MODERN HISTORY. 369 

1,815. The injuries the natives had experienced at the hands of 
the three partitioning powers very naturally disposed them to ac- 
cept any offers from the enemies of their oppressors ; and, as Buo- 
naparte had frequent opportunities of making such offers, It is not 
to he wondered that he should have obtained their assistance, and 
subjected them, more or less, to his government and control ; but 
as he was only at times in opposition to, and as often allied with 
one or other of the three powers, Russia, Austria, or Prussia, he 
was never able to propose their entire emancipation, even if he had 
desired it. Thus continually deceived and mortified, they derived 
no advantage from the aid they gave to France, if we except that ten- 
dency towards the recovery of a separate existence, (for it can 
scarcely be called more,) the creation of the grand duchy of War- 
saw, in 1,807, which, by the treaty of Tilsit, and with the consent 
of Buonaparte, was consigned to the king of Saxony ; the emperor 
of Russia at the same time acquiring much of Poland from Prussia. 
[n 1,812, the kingdom was declared by the diet of Warsaw to be re- 
established; and by the treaty of Vienna, in 1,815, being formally 
delivered up by the king of Saxony, it became annexed to Russia 
and was declared to be, " irrevocably attached to it by its constitution, 
to be possessed by his majesty the emperor of all the Russias, his 
heirs and successors in perpetuity." The part assigned to Prussia 
took the name of the grand duchy of Posen. The salt-mines of 
Vielitzka were confirmed to the emperor of Austria, and such dis- 
tricts as had been acquired by the treaty of Vienna, in 1,809. The 
town of Cracow was declared to be for ever a free, independent, and 
strictly neutral city, under the protection of Austria^ Russia, and 
Prussia. The navigation of the rivers and canals, in all parts of an- 
cient Poland, (as it existed in the year 1,772,) was by particular 
treaties, between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, declared to be free, 
so as not to be interdicted to any inhabitant of the Polish provinces, 
belonging to either of the three powers. 



SECTION XX. 

GREAT BRITAIN, FROM THE PEACE OF AMIENS, 1,802, TO 
THE DEATH OF GEORGE III., 1,820. 

1 . Before one year had passed from the conclusion of the peace 
of Amiens, circumstances took place which too plainly indicated a 
strong probability of the renewal of hostilities, and so early as the 
month of May, 1803, letters of marque and reprisal were again is- 
sued against the French, by the Britisn government, apparently 
with the full consent of the people at large, notwithstanding the 
enthusiastic joy which had been expressed on the termination of 
the war in the year preceding. It was upon this occasion that the 
first consul had recourse to a measure, singular in its nature, and 
which exposed many persons and families to great inconvenience. 
He forcibly detained all the English who happened to be in France, 
not only for purposes of business, but of pleasure or curiosity ; nor, 
with very few exceptions, were any of them able to return to their 
native country, for the long space of ten or eleven years. Prepa- 
rations also were made for the invasion of England, which only ex- 
cited a stronger disposition, on the part of the latter country, to pre- 

47 



370 MODERN HISTORY. 

pare against such attempts, in a way well calculated to destroy af 
once all the enemy's hopes and prospects of success, in Ireland, 
indeed, a new conspiracy was set on foot, which was supposed to 
rest on some promised support from France ; but this was denied by 
the conspirators themselves, and the disturbance soon quelled, with- 
out spreading, in fact, beyond the capital. 

2. Though the king of Great Britain had declared, that, with 
regard to his electoral states, he should remain neuter, Buonaparte 
did not neglect such an opportunity of wounding his feelings, by 
the speedy occupation of Hanover, under circumstances peculiarly 
aggravating to the people. Early in the month of June, 1,803, the 
Hanoverian troops were made to lay down their arms, and engage 
not to serve against the French without a previous exchange. 

3. Holland was still too much under subjection to France, to be 
permitted to remain at peace; letters of marque were, therefore, 
also issued against the Batavian republic, on its refusal to agree to a 
perfect neutrality. 

4. In 1,804, a change of ministry in England brought Mr. Pitt 
again into power, at a moment when the affairs of the continent, 
and the increased power of the first consul, who, in the course of 
the same month, assumed the imperial dignity, demanded all his 
attention. Before the conclusion of the year, the aid which Spain 
was compelled to render to the French, together with certain ap- 
pearances of hostile preparations in her ports, exposed her to an 
attack on the part of Great Britain, which soon drew from her a 
declaration of war, very fatal to her interests, though scarcely to 
be avoided, considering the circumstances in which she had been 
placed by the extraordinary proceedings and demands of the British 
government, which was supposed to have violated the strict rules 
of justice, if not of international law, by arbitrarily and prematurely 
seizing her treasure-ships, on their passage to her ports, in an action 
perfectly unforeseen and unexpected, and in which many lives were 
lost. 

5. But if the character of the British nation or government suf 
fered in any respect from errors or mistakes ia the commencement 
of the war, its naval power and credit were nighly advanced be- 
fore a year had passed, by the splendid victory obtained over the 
Spanish and French fleets combined, off cape Trafalgar, in Octo- 
ber, 1,805; a victory not achieved, however, without a correspon- 
dent loss, as has been before stated, in the death of the very cele- 
brated lord Nelson, commander of the British squadron, "who fell 
early in the action, and whose body, being afterwards brought to 
England, was buried with very unusual honours in the centre of 
St. Paul's cathedral. 

6. In 1,806 died Mr. Pitt; a minister whose extraordinary talents 
and integrity of life attached to him many friends and adherents, 
by whom he was ably supported through a very arduous contest , 
a contest which, though some thought it might have been avoided, 
others as confidently regarded as entirely just and necessary, and 
a timely security against the propagation of revolutionary princi- 
ples, more threatening and dangerous than any aggressions purely 
hostile. It is always easy to say, such and such events would not 
have happened, had a different course from the one actually adopted 
been pursued ; but this is at best mere matter of surmise. It is im- 
possible now to speak decisively of what might or might not have 
been the consequences of a longer forbearance from war; it is ex 



MODERN HISTORY. S71 

tremely certain that many untoward circumstances prevented the 
accomplishment of all that Mr. Pitt had in view, and that the power 
of the French emperor, instead of being checked, was advancing 
with rapid strides to a pitch of uncontrollable and extended domin- 
ion, when the former was seized with that illness which terminated 
nis life, in the forty-seventh year of his age. On his death, a new 
administration was formed, including his great parliamentary oppo- 
nent, Mr. Fox, who survived him for the short space of only seven 
months. It is highly creditable to the character of the British nation 
to record, that these two eminent statesmen, who had been for a long 
time so much opposed to each other, but whose abilities and sinceri- 
ty in an opposite line of politics appear to have been duly acknowl- 
edged and appreciated by all parties at the period of their deaths, 
were buried at the public expense, in Westminister Abbey, so near 
to each other, that one stone might have covered the remains of 
both. 

7. During the short time that Mr. Fox was a member of adminis- 
tration, fresh attempts were made to terminate the war, by negotia- 
tion, but in vain. Though the French emperor would have agreed 
to many cessions of importance, both to Great Britain and her 
ally, the emperor of Russia, it was found impossible to detach from 
his influence and usurped authority some of the most important 
parts of Europe, particularly Holland, Switzerland, Italy, and Ger- 
many. 

8 The system so generally adopted by the tyrant of France, of 
converting to his own use the resources of all other countries, 
which could in any manner be rendered subservient to his purpose, 
led the administration which succeeded that in which Mr. Fox had 
a share, to set on foot an expedition which has been judged by 
many incapable of justification on any principles of political expe- 
diency, and which was unfortunately attended with more fatal con- 
sequences than were at first perhaps contemplated. Upon what in^ 
formation the ministry proceeded did not fully appear at the time, 
but it was alleged that they had reason to know that the French ruler 
designed to occupy Holstein, and convert to the purposes of an in- 
vasion of the British dominions the Danish marine. 

9. It was determined, in order to prevent such an accession to the 
laval power of France, to obtain possession of the fleet on which the 
memy had thus fixed his view, and though it might perhaps have 
been both hoped and expected by the British government, that the 
Danes would be brought peaceably to surrender into their hands 
for a time a fleet thus devoted to the ruin of a friendly power, yet 
i.he result turned out to be far otherwise. The Danes resisted the 
lemand, and though quite unable effectually to defend against the 
forces opposed to them either their fleet or their capital, did not 
^apitulate till about two thousand persons had lost their lives, and 
many houses been burnt in a manner that threatened the entire de- 
struction of the city. The end, it is true, was accomplished, of get- 
ting into the power of the English all the Danish ships of war, (eigh- 
teen ships of the line and fifteen frigates,) and naval stores ; but it is 
».o be feared that it will be long before the irritation caused by this 
uudden and unexpected attack on a brave people, not at war with 
England, will be allayed or forgotten. 

10. In vindication of the suspicions of the British ministry, it was 
asserted that the Danish marine and arsenals were found m a state 
which left no doubt of the intrigues and agency of the Erench, ac- 



672 MODERN HISTORY. 

cording to the judgment of the officers and seamen employed in the 
expedition. The general designs of France seem, indeed, to have 
been decisively manifested, in the measures they now openly pur- 
sued, ahout the same time, of appropriating to themselves the fleet 
of Portugal, and for similar purposes, but which, fortunately without 
so melancholy a catastrophe, was rescued from the grasp of the 
French ruler, by its timely removal, under the protection of a British 
armament, to the ports of Brazil. The difference between the two 
cases seemed to be this; that in getting possession of the latter fleet 
we were actually assisting an ally; in the former, we were com- 
pelling a neutral to adopt a measure judged to be unnecessary on her 
part, and on suspicions, the grounds of which she disavowed ; but the 
state of Europe, at that period, appears to have been such, especially 
with regard to the minor states, as to justify precautions against 
French power and French intrigue, seldom, if ever, resorted to in 
other instances : it may also be added, that Portugal unreservedly 
communicated to England the avowed designs of France ; Denmark, 
to say the least, acted with a reserve tar from friendly, and resisted 
all negotiation ; the consequences to the latter, however, were cer- 
tainly deplorable. 

11. It was in the year 1,807, that the royal family of France, 
whose situation on the continent became every day more alarming 
and insecure, took refuge in England ; they fixed their residence at 
Hartwell, in Buckinghamshire, his majesty styling himself the count 
de Lisle, and modestly declining all honours and attentions, beyond 
such as might be due to a private nobleman 

12. The vindictive measures adopted by the French government 
to ruin the trade and commerce of Great Britain, naturally drew 
from the latter retaliatory expedients, which were more or less ap- 
proved, as affecting neutral and friendly powers, but which could 
scarcely have been avoided, without surrendering her maritime 
rights, and submitting to a pretence of blockade on the part of a 
power, whose ships had been fairly driven from the sea by the 
British fleets. Orders in council were issued in the months of Janua- 
ry and November, 1,807, not only prohibiting all trade between the 
ports of France and its allies, but ultimately compelling all neutrals, 
trading to France, to stop at a British port, and pay a duty in propor- 
tion to the value of the cargo. These embarrassments to trade in 
general could not fail to excite great uneasiness in all parts of the 
world ; but the commencement of them is justly to be imputed to the 
extraordinary decree, issued by the French ruler at Berlin, (the basis 
of the " continental system,") November, 1,806, an account of which 
is given in Sect. XVI. : unfortunately the impossibility of satisfactorily 
exempting other states from the effect of these prohibitory and 
regulating decrees, on the part of the two rival countries, involved 
England in a very unpleasant dispute with the United States of 
America. 

13. Of the part England took in the affairs of Spain and Portugal, 
Irom 1,808 to 1,814, an account is to be found elsewhere (See Sect, 
XVII.) It may be sufficient to say, that, during the whole contest, 
the emancipation of those two ancient kingdoms from the power of 
the French seemed to be contemplated by the whole mass of British 
subjects as their own cause. The people of Great Britain and Ire- 
land, on the first application for assistance from Spain, appeared 
ready to rise in a body. They hailed the dawn of liberty on the 
continent with the most enthusiastic feelings. The deputies from the 



MODERN HISTORY. 373 

supreme junta of Seville, did not arrive in England, on their mission 
to the British government, till the 24th of July, 1,808 ; but long be- 
fore that, other deputies from the principality of Asturias had been 
received in London, with the most cordial tokens of esteem and 
friendship. They were splendidly entertained by the City of Lon- 
don, the Bank, and other public bodies, as well as by individuals of 
the highest distinction. Subscriptions were opened in London, Liver- 
pool, Bristol, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dublin, Cork, Waterford, and 
many other places, for supporting the cause of Spain ; and several 
military corps, militia, and volunteers, offered their services. Govern- 
ment supplied them immediately with three hundred thousand pounds 
in dollars, five thousand muskets, thirty thousand pikes, and an im- 
mense quantity of powder and balls, with promises of more effectual 
aid, which were ultimately amply fulfilled. The spirit thus display- 
ed by the British public, on the first certain intelligence received of 
the anti-gallican insurrection in Spain, may be said to have continued 
unabated till, through the matchless skill and valour of the confede- 
rate armies under the duke of Wellington, the French were finally 
driven from the peninsula in 1,814, as related in our account of 
Spain. 

14. His majesty George III., having, in the month of October, 
1,809, entered upon the 50th year of his reign, the event was cele- 
brated throughout the nation in a very striking manner, by services 
of thanksgiving in all the churches and chapels, with suitable dis- 
courses, illuminations, feasts, and other testimonies of joy, but parti- 
cularly by liberal benefactions to the poor. In the month of Novem- 
ber in the following year, his majesty, much troubled and afflicted by 
the long illness and death of his daughter the princess Amelia, had 
an alarming return of his former complaint, which terminated in a 
second suspension of his regal functions, and from which he never so 
sufficiently recovered as to be able to transact any business of state. 
On the 20th of December, his royal highness the prince of Wales 
was appointed regent, subject for a period to restrictions similar to 
those which had been proposed in 1,788-9. This plan was violently 
opposed, as unconstitutional and impolitic, but finally carried in Feb- 
ruary, 1,811. The bill was completed and presented to his royal 
highness, who did not hesitate to accept the trust, though not without 
remonstrating against the limitations and restrictions imposed on him. 
Early in 1,812, however, these restrictions were to cease. Great 
changes in administration had been contemplated, and many negotia- 
tions were carried on to this effect, but without accomplishing that 
union and coalition of parties, which the regent himself seemed to 
desire. Not being disposed to withhold his confidence therefore from 
those who had so long served his royal father, most of them, on the 
termination of the restrictions, were continued in their places. A 
most melancholy catastrophe, which occurred in the month of May, 
1,812, deprived the nation of the services of Mr. Percival, who was 
assassinated in the lobby of the house of commons, by a person ol 
the name of BellinghamJ in revenge, as he himself stated, of a pri- 
vate injury ; a denial of justice, as he called it, on the part of govern- 
ment. It seemed to be accidental that the premier happened to be 
the individual first presented to his notice on that fatal day. 

[The paragraphs 15 and 16 of Dr. Nares' work, giving a very 
short account of the differences between the English and American 
governments in 1,812, 13, 14, and 15, are omitted. For a more par- 
ticular, and we trust more impartial account of the war between 



374 MODERN HISTOUY. 

Great Britain ami the United States, the reader is referred to Section 
VI. of Part Fourth, near the close o\ this volume.] 

17. The year 1,814. will ever be memorable in the English histo- 
ry, for the very extraordinary influence of foreigners of the Highest 
distinction, from the opposite shore, on the downtal of Buonaparte, 
and the conclusion of a war. which had agitated the whole of Eu- 
rope. The list of visitors invited to the grand civic feast given by 
the corporation of London, and all of whom were present, but a 
very few, whom illness kept away, may convey some idea of the 
splendid scenes that took place in different parts of the kingdom 
in honour of these illustrious guests. It was on the 18th of Dane 
that the dinner was given to the following very exalted person- 
ages : 

The Prince Regent; the Emperor of Russia; his sister, the Grand 
Duchess of Oldenburgh, (afterwards Queen of Wibtemburo ;) the 
King of Prussia; the Royal Dukes of England : the Prince Royal of 
Prussia ; Prince William of Prussia, son of the king ; Prince F 
ick* nephew of the king ; Prince Henry, brother of the king; Prince 
William, brother of the king; Prince Augiistus ± the king's cousin; 
the Prince of Orange; the Prince Royal of \Virtemburg ; the Prince 
Royal of Bavaria ; the Prlnce of Oldenburg; the Prince of Cobonrg ; 
Prince Charles of Mecklenburgh ; Duke of Saxe Weimar; Prince 
Gagarina ; Prince Czeretorinke ; Prince Radzivil ; Marshal Prince 
Blucher ; Prince Hardenburg ; Prince Metternich ; Prince Liechten- 
stein ; Prince and Princess Volkouske ; his highness the Duke of 
Orleans. 

These illustrious foreigners were entertained, at great cost and ex- 
pense, during their stay, both by the court and public bodies: the 
prince regent accompanied them on a visit to the university of Ox 
ford, audio Portsmouth, where they had an opportunity of witness- 
ing a naval review. 

18. In May, 1,816, the heiress to the British crown, princess Char- 
otte, only child of the regent, was married to his serene highness 

Leopold George Frederic, prince of Cobourg. This marriage was 
contemplated by the nation as an object of the highest hopes; and 
for several months the amiable and exemplary conduct of her royal 
highness cheered the people with the brightest prospects of future 
good ; but a very sudden and unexpected disappointment took place 
in the month of November, 1817; the princess was delivered of a 
still-born male infant, and survived her delivery only a few hours. 
Nothing could exceed the concern manifested by the public on this 
melancholy and distressing occasion. 

In the month of November, in the following year, her majesty 
queen Charlotte died at Kew. after a long and painful illness ; and on 
the 29th of January, 182U, was followed by her royal consort king 
George III. His majesty died at the castle of Windsor, at a very 
advanced age, and in the sixtieth year of his reign ; greatly beloved 
by his subjects, and universally respected for bis many amiable and 
royal virtues, 






MODERN HISTORY. S76 



SECTION XXI. 

FRANCE, FROM THE ENTRANCE OF THE ALLIES INTO PAR. 
IS, MARCH, 1,814, TO THE FINAL EVACUATION OF IT BY 
THE FOREIGN TROOPS, 1,818. 

1. Soon alter Buonaparte departed for Elba, Louis XVIII. was 
freely recalled to the throne of his ancestors ; he had been resident in 
many places since his first emigration, and been driven from almost 
ail, by the approach of republican troops, the dread of republican 
vengeance in those who afforded him a refuge, and not unseldom the 
fear of poison or assassination. England, at length, afforded him the 
asylum he sought in vain elsewhere : there he lived secure against 
French armies, French influence, and, as far as Englishmen could 
protect him, the poisonous drug, or the sword of the assassin. When 
the way was opened for him to return to his native country, and re- 
ceive the crown and the throne, which his people now offered him, 
but which had been so insulted and abused, it was characteristic of 
Englishmen to rejoice at his restoration, and at the great change pre- 
pared for him, from a state of banishment, outlawry, and dependence, 
to the recovery of one of the most brilliant thrones of Europe, and 
from which his unhappy brother had fallen in a way to excite the 
sympathy of every feeling and generous mind: his departure from 
England to France was accompanied with the acclamations and sin 
cere gratulations of all ranks of people ; the prince regent personally 
escorted him not only to London, but from London to Dover : and 
took leave of him, in sight of the French coast, in a manner the 
most affecting and impressive. White flags were exhibited on almost 
all the churches, near which he had to pass, and nothing could ex- 
ceed the joy expressed upon the overthrow of Buonaparte, and the 
restoration of the Bourbons, both in England and France. 

2. In the latter country, however, it may be naturally supposed, 
the joy could not be general, nor much of what was expressed out- 
wardly, sincere : Louis XVIII. returned to France, not as it was when 
he left it, but revolutionized; it had undergone great changes, and a 
large proportion of the population was deeply interested in those 
ch uiges : yet many, who returned with him, were quite as deeply 
in crested, in absolutely reversing what had passed, restoring what 
hud been abolished, reclaiming what had been alienated, if not even 
punishing and degrading those who had participated in or been ben- 
efited by such revolutions. 

3. In the mean while the exiled emperor was not quiet ; he was 
too near to the French coast to be kept in ignorance of what was 
passing, and of the sentiments entertained towards him, by those who 
had participated in his many glorious and triumphant achievements, 
and who could ill brook the degradation to which they might be 
doomed by the restoration of the Bourbons ; the army, in particular 
to whom indeed he had behaved not only ill, but cruelly, in his re- 
treat from Russia and Leipzig, had yet been raised by him to such a 
pitch of glory and pre-eminence, as might reasonably account for its 
feeling both disgust and resentment, at having been compelled to sub- 
mit to the intrusion of strangers into their country and" metropolis, 
strangers, whom they had previously been able not only to defy and 
resist, but in some instances, to triumph over in their own capitals. 



370 MODERN HISTORY. 

4. The situation of the king of France, therefore, on his return to 
his dominions, however acceptable to the greater part of Europe, 
could scarcely be such as he might himself wish or desire : it was 
impossible for him to return to the ancient state of things ; and he 
must have foreseen how difficult it would be to render any new con* 
stitution agreeable or suitable to all parties. The senate, indeed, 
had prepared a new constitution before his arrival ; one which bore 
a considerable analogy to that of England ; the legislative power be- 
ing placed in the hands of the king, the senate, and the representa- 
tives of the nation at large ; and the amount, nature, and distribution 
of the public taxes, left ex;lusively to the decision of the latter* the 
deputies were to exercise their functions for the space of five years* 
the dignity of senator to be hereditary, and to be con!t rred by the 
king, though with a limitation as to numbers, which weie not to ex- 
ceed 200; religious freedom, and the liberty of the press, were duly 
provided for: this constitution was to be presented to him, to be ac- 
cepted previously to his inauguration ; but on his arrival at Paris, he 
did not choose to bind himself, further than to promise his people 
such a constitution as they would have no reason to disapprove : his 
first care was, to arrange matters with the foreign potentates who 
occupied his capital, so as to be able, as speedily as possible, to get 
rid of their numerous armies ; whose presence could not fail to be a 

ubject of uneasiness to his own armies, as well as to the people in 
general : to the credit of the troops themselves, under such extraor- 
dinary circumstances, it should be observed, that nothing could ex- 
ceed the order and forbearance with which they conducted them- 
selves, as victors, in a capital, which, in the way of simple retribu- 
tion, stood fairly exposed to plunder, exaction, and devastation. 

5. Though it was soon settled to refer to a convention at Vienna 
the final adjustment of matters, and arrangement of peace ; ye 
France was quickly made to understand, that her boundaries must be 
greatly contracted, and that the independence of most of the newly 
annexed states and territories must be freely acknowledged ; to these 
terms both the king and his minister, prince Talleyrand, plainly saw 
the necessity of yielding, though the pride of the French was likely 
to be wounded by it. 

6. On the 4th of June, the king presented to the senate and legis- 
lative body his own new constitution, which ditTered in several points 
from that submitted to him on his arrival ; it reserved to himself the 
right of proposing laws, and the assembly could only request to be 
permitted to discuss particular points; instead of an hereditary 
senate, peers, chosen by the king for life were to compose that body, 
without limitation of numbers ; the popular representative* were to 
consist of 262, not under 40 years of age : they were to be convoked 
every year, and were to have the power of impeaching the minis- 
ters for treason or extortion ; the k ng was to appoint the judges, and 
trial by jury was to be continued : the press was placed under a cen- 
sorship, and an order was given for closing the theatres and shops on 
the sabbath ; an order not only extremely unpopular at the time, 
t»ut,as it would seem, ineffectual. In nominating the senate, some of 
Buonaparte's courtiers and marshals were included, particularly 
Talleyrand, who became minister for foreign affairs. 

7. The king, who t'rom the first commencement of the revolution 
had displayed a disposition to favour the rights of the people, more 
than others of his family, or the chiefs of the emigrants, was little 
likely of himself to deviate from the principles of the constitution, 



MODERN HISTORY. 371 

o. to disturb unnecessarily the existing state of things, in which so 
tettny interests were involved, but he was supposed to have around 
him persons still bigotted to the ancient system, and anxious to re- 
cover all that they had forfeited by the course of the revolution 
These things, together with the dissatisfied state of the army, paved 
the way for the return of Buonaparte. 

8. The probability of such an event seems to have been strangely 
overlooked by those who were most interested in preventing it: the 
popularity of the deposed emperor had been miscalculated. On the 
1st of March, 1,815, he landed once more on the shores of France, 
with only 1,140 attendants ; an attempt which many judged to be 
altogether hopeless, yet, to the utter surprise of those who thought 
so, his progress towards Paris, though not unmolested, afforded him 
every hour, from the defection of the troops sent against him. 
stronger hopes of recovering his authority. On the 20th of March' 
the king was persuaded to retire from Paris ; and on the evening of 
that very day Buonaparte entered it, being hailed by the populace, 
which had so lately saluted the return of the Bourbons in the same 
manner, with the loudest acclamations. 

9. He was soon convinced, however, that he was not returned to 
his ancient power, and that he, quite as much as Louis XVIII., would 
now be expected to gratify the people with a free constitution ; he 
speedily therefore, issued some popular decrees, establishing the 
freedom of the press; abolishing the slave-trade ; and regulating ihe 
taxes which weighed most heavily on the people ; he also conde- 
scended to offer to them the plan of a constitution, very different from 
the system of despotism upon which he had before acted, and con- 
taining many excellent regulations: he had, however, but little time 
to spare for legislative measures. A manifesto of expulsion and ex- 
termination had been issued against him by the congress at Vienna, 
signed by the plenipotentiaries of Austria, France, Great Britain, 
Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal, and it was indispensably 
necessary for him to prepare for war. To this manifesto on the part 
of the allied powers, Buonaparte was not slow in dictating and present- 
ing to Europe a counter manifesto, asserting in the strongest terms 
the right of the French to adhere to the dynasty they had chosen on 
the expulsion of the Bourbons ; and declaring that the confederate 
princes had been the first to violate the treaty of Fontainebleau; 
but it is remarkable that, though Buonaparte so peremptorily assert- 
ed, in his manifesto, the right of the French freely to choose what 
dynasty they pleased to reign over them, he had inserted in his new 
constitution an article, totally, and for ever, to exclude the Bourbon 
family from the succession to the throne. 

10. It was not till June that the several armies were prepared tc 
take the field, and between the 15th and 19th of that month, the fate 
of Europe seemed once more to become dependent on the decision 
of the sword. The battle of Waterloo, which took place on the 18th 
of June, and in which the British and Prussian armies, under the 
duke of Wellington and marshal Blucher, totally defeated the French, 
effectually put an end to all the hopes and prospects of Buonaparte. 
On the 20th, he arrived at Paris, the first of his fugitive army ; and 
in a very k\v days after, was compelled a second time to resign hi? 
usurped dominions. On his retirement from Paris, his destination 
appeared to be a matter of extreme doubt, till on the 15th of July he 
put himself into the hands of the English by going on board the Bel- 
lerophon man of war, and surrendering himself and suit uncondition- 

i2 48 



378 MODERN HISTORY. 

ally to captain Maitland, the commander of that ship, who sailed im* 
mediately to Torbay with his prisoners, none of whom were per- 
mitted to land. 

1 1. On the 3d of July, not however without a struggle on the part 
of the French army, Paris had formally surrendered to the duke of 
Wellington and prince Blucher, who took possession of it on the 7th, 
and on the 8th the king returned, greeted, as before, with the cheer- 
ing and acclamations of" the tickle multitudes who thronged the roads 
by which he had to pass. By the terms of capitulation, the French 
troops under Davoust had been made to retire beyond the Loire, 
which they did with sullen indignation ; but on the arrival of the 
Austrians and Russians at Paris, came over to the king. It was very 
obvious, that, having Buonaparte once more in their power, the allies 
could not fail to provide all possible precautions against his return 
into any situation which might afford him the means of commu- 
nicating with his old adherent*, and thereby resuming the station he 
had occupied for so many years, to their extreme annoyance. The 
small, rocky, and totally detached island of St. Helena, in the Atlantic 
ocean, seemed the only secure place of abode to which he could be 
asiigned. It was therefore agreed to send him thither, under the 
custody of the British government, but under the eye, also, of com- 
missioners appointed to reside there, on the part of the Austrian, 
Russian, and French governments. On the 17th of October, 1,815, 
he arrived at his destined residence. 

12. Amongst the measures adopted by the military commanders of 
the foreign troops at Paris, none seemed more to occupy the atten- 
tion of Europe than the determination they formed to restore to the 
places which had been robbed of them The valuable works of art, 
which the victories of the French armies had put into their posses- 
sion, not merely in the way of plunder, but upon a regular system of 
purloining every thing which could add to the splendour and great- 
ness of their own capital, however grating to the feelings of those 
from whom they were taken, and however severely it must have 
added to the mortifications they had been doomed to suffer from 
weakness or defeat. The justice of such a step could not be dis- 
puted, though nothing was more likely to excite the resentment and 
indignation of the French, in whose hands, it must be acknowledged, 
had they been properly acquired, they were likely enough to be 
preserved and exhibited to the world, in a manner the most condu- 
cive to the glory and immortality of the illustrious artists to whom 
they owed their origin ; but, as an act of honourable restitution, in 
many instances, to persons and places whose claims would otherwise 
have been mocked and derided, the interposition of the two victori- 
ous chiefs upon this occasion may be justly admired. Prince Blucher, 
indeed, had a direct interest in reclaiming the spoils of Berlin and 
Potzdam, but the duke of Wellington, while he had nothing to re- 
cover for his own country, freely assisted those whose pretensions re- 
quired the support of such paramount authority. 

13. By the second general pacification of Paris with the allies, 
November 20th, 1,815, it was agreed that an army of occupation, 
amounting to 150,000 men, and to be maintained in a great measure 
by France, should for the space of live years be put in possession of 
her frontier fortresses, while her boundary should be farther reduced 
than on the former occasion ; terms sufficiently mortitying, but justi- 
fied by the turbulent and unsettled principles of the French nation, 
Though the period of five years, however, had been specifically 



MODERN HISTORY. 379 

agreed to, the state of things afterwards appearing such as to justify 
the allies in departing from the exact letter of the treaty, in the 
spring of the year 1,817 they consented to reduce the army of oc- 
cupation one fifth, and in the autumn of 1,818, it was wholly with- 
drawn from the French territories, and the fortresses on the frontier 
restored. 

SECTION XXII. 

NORTHERN STATES OF EUROPE, FROM THE CLOSE OF THE 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

1. Though much has been said of the northern courts in the pre- 
ceding sections, as bearing a part in the transactions on the continent, 
during the last and present centuries, yet as they have not been 
mentioned distinctly and particularly, some brief account of them 
may be necessary, to give a clearer view of the course of events 
during the period under consideration. 

2. Peter the great, of Russia, who died in 1,725, (see Sect. LXVI. 
§ 2.) was succeeded by his widow, Catherine I., who survived him 
only two years. It is remarkable, that though Peter had taken par- 
ticular care to secure to the reigning monarch a power of naming 
his successor, he should himself neglect this precaution ; and for 
such an omission the law had made no provision. Catherine, how- 
ever, had little or no difficulty to take his place. She was a woman, 
if not of a superior, yet of rather an extraordinary character : had 
attended Peter in his travels and campaigns ; been serviceable to him 
in his greatest extremities ; often checked the violence of his pas- 
sions ; and manifested a disposition, during her short reign, to encour- 
age a spirit of liberty amongst her subjects, and to promote, in every 
way she could, the progress of improvement and civilization. Her 
death was little expected, and excited some suspicions against the 
prince Menzicoff, who had just negociated a treaty with Austria, and 
entered into a stipulation to raise the son of the unfortunate prince 
Alexis to the throne, upon the condition of his marrying his daughter. 

3. The empress died in 1,727, and was succeeded by Peter II., 
grandson of Peter I. Menzicoff, however, seemed to take into his 
own hands the reins of government, till he was supplanted by one 
of the Dolgorouki family, and banished to Siberia, with his wife and 
children. The new favourite designed to marry his sister to the 
emperor; but on January 29, 1,730, Peter died of the small-pox. 
In him the male issue of the line becoming extinct, Anne, duchess of 
Courland, was called to the throne through the influence of Dolgo- 
rouki, contrary to the order of succession established by Peter I., and 
in prejudice of her elder sister, the duchess of Mecklenburg. They 
were both of them the daughters of Iwan, the eldest brother of 
Peter. 

4. The reign of Anne was prosperous and glorious ; she showed 
great sagacity and firmness in resisting the intrigues, and balancing 
the credit of rival statesmen, counsellors, and generals, Russian and 
foreign; maintaining her prerogatives against those who sought to 
invade them, to further their own ambition, particularly Dolgorouki. 
who, though he had placed her on the throne, was disgraced and 
banished to Siberia. Anne died in 1,740, leaving the crown, by het 
wili, to her grand-nephew Iwan, sen of her niece, Anne, princess of 



380 MODERN HISTORY. 

Mecklenburg, married to the duke of Brunswick Bevern; but she 
appointed her favourite, count Biren, whom she had brought with 
her from Courland, regent. 

5. This last arrangement threw things into the utmost confusion. 
Biren was deservedly no favourite with the Russians, more than 
20,000 of whom he is said to have sent into banishment ; he had, 
besides, a powerful rival in count Munich, the conqueror of Ocza- 
kow, a German, and a man of singular bravery and resolution ; the 
latter succeeded in dispossessing the regent of his authority in favour 
of the mother of the emperor. Biren was sent to Siberia; and the 
princess of Mecklenburg (duchess of Brunswick) assumed the reins 
of government ; but not attending sufficiently to the duties of hei 
high station, and appearing to give too great encouragement to 
foreigners, a new revolution was set on foot, to place on the throne 
the youngest daughter of Peter the great, the princess Elizabeth. 
This party, supported by French gold, and headed by Lestocq, a 
physician, quickly becoming strong, seized upon the emperor Iwan 
and his parents, and proclaimed Elizabeth empress of all the Russias. 
The life of the infant Iwan was preserved by the clemency and ex- 
press interposition of Elizabeth ; but only to undergo a harder fate. 
(See below, § 8.) Munich was banished ; and other foreign generals, 
who had favoured the former government, either shared the same 
destiny, or contrived to escape from the Russian dominions. The 
people were well pleased to see the throne rescued from the hands 
of foreigners in favour of so direct a claimant as the daughter ot 
Peter the great. This revolution took place in the month of No- 
vember, 1,741. 

6. Russia flourished under the sway of Elizabeth, whose reign ex- 
m'oited an uninterrupted career of "glory and success ; her alliance 
was courted by some of the greatest powers in Europe. Before her 
death, which happened in 1,762, she took care to restore the natural 
order of succession in her family, by declaring the duke of Holstein 
Gottorp, her heir, son of her eldest sister, and who became emperor, 
on her demise, by the title of Peter III. 

7. This unfortunate prince was not suffered to reign long ; he had 
married a princess of Anhalt-Zerbst; a woman of singular character, 
peculiarly fitted to avail herself of any opportunities that might offer 
m so unsettled a country, to gratify her ambition, and give scope to 
her abilities. The prince had not behaved well to her, and many 
things concurred to render him unpopular, if not hateful to his sub- 
jects; particularly an enthusiastic attachment to the king of Prussia, 
then at war with the Russians, and projected innovations, well-meant 
but ill-timed, some particularly affecting the clergy. He proposed to 
circumscribe the power of the nobles, and seemed to prefer the 
Holstein troops to his Russian guard. As these things rendered his 
removal probable, according to the ordinary course of proceedings in 
that semi-barbarous country, the sagacious Catherine willingly gave 
Herself up to a party who had conspired against her httebafrd. It is 
generally conjectured that she connived, not only at the deposition, 
but at the death of Peter, who survived his elevation to the imperial 
dignity not many months; while Catherine, by her superior address 
and intrepidity, not only succeeded in establishing herself upon the 
vacant throne, but in emancipating herself from the domination of the 
party to whom she stood indebted for it, (the Orloffs.) 

8. One competitor still seemed to stand in her way, — the unfortu 
nate iwan,— who had been deposed by Elizabeth, and now languished 



MODERN HISTORY. 381 

In confinement, at the age of twenty-four. Soon after Catherine's 
accession he was slain in prison, on a pretence of his attempting to 
escape, but under circumstances so mysterious as to involve, the em- 
press in suspicion. She reigned under the title of Catherine II. for 
the long space of upwards of thirty-four years, continually occupied 
in advancing the glory of her people, in augmenting her dominions, 
and rewarding merit. She obtained many signal advantages over the 
Turks, and succeeded (1,784) in wresting from them the whole dis- 
trict of the Crimea ; but her designs extended much farther, even to 
(he expulsion of the Ottomans, and restoration of a Grecian empire, 
having for its capital Athens or Constantinople : she contemplated, in 
short, the complete triumph of the Cross over the Crescent. An ex- 
pedition was even undertaken for the liberation of the Greeks, in 
the year 1,770; but it proved ineffectual, though it might have been 
otherwise, had the Russian commanders consented to follow the ad- 
vice of th > Scotch admiral, Elphinstone, who commanded one of the 
divisions ot the fleet. 

9. Catherine bore a large share in the partition of Poland, and 
seems to have been restrained by no principles of justice, humanity, 
morality, or virtue, from furthering the purposes of her ambition and 
policy : her prodigality was great, her largesses enormous, and her 
love of magnificence little proportioned to the smallness of the im- 
perial revenue : her abilities and her resolution were remarkable, 
and she may be considered as having contributed largely to the im- 
provement and glory of the country over which she was permitted 
so long to bear unlimited rule. Her domestic regulations savoured 
little of the despotism displayed in her foreign enterprises : she miti- 
gated the rigour of the penal laws, abolished torture and slavery, 
protected the arts and sciences, and endeavoured to elevate the mid- 
dle class to a proper degree of importance. 

10. Catherine II. was succeeded in 1,796 by her son Paul I., a 
strange character, unsettled in his principles, dissolute in his manners, 
jealous, vindictive, and, in his last days, scarcely in possession of his 
senses. On his first accession, however, he wisely endeavoured to 
provide against the evils arising from an unsettled inheritance, by 
enacting a law to secure the crown to his lineal and direct descen- 
dants, not absolutely excluding females, but admitting them only into 
the line of succession on a total failure of male heirs. 

11. The emperor appeared to be extremely eager to secure an 
entrance into the Mediterranean, and was highly gratified with being 
chosen patron of the order of Malta, which lie consented to take 
under his protection in the year 1,798. He had been induced to take 
a part in the war against the French, and succeeded, in conjunction 
with the Turks, in getting possession, for a short time, of the Ionian 
islands ; a Russian army was also sent to co-operate with the Austri- 
ans, under the command of the celebrated Souwarow, (or Souvaroff,) 
who, after having achieved great victories in Lombardy, seems to 
have been cruelly abandoned in Svvisserland, and to have unjustly in- 
curred the displeasure of his capricious master. A misunderstanding 
between the English and Paul on the subject of Malta, entirely 
alienated the latter from the confederacy. In the mean while, his 
violent conduct had induced the great officers of state and the nobiJHy 
to conspire to dethrone him. He was slain in defending himself 
during a conflict, in his own chamber, March 24, 1,801 ; and, greatly 
to the joy of his oppressed people, succeeded by his son Alexander, 



382 MODERN HISTORY. 

the present emperor, of whose accession, and share in the continental 
war, an account has already been given. 

12. Prussia, as a kingdom, is not older than the eighteenth century, 
and entirely belongs therefore to the period under discussion. Its 
history, as connected with the electorate of Brandenburgh, ascends 
as high, perhaps, as that of any sovereignty in Europe. Its present 
power may be said to have taken its rise from the wisdom, judgment, 
and good sense of the elector Frederic- William, commonly called the 
great elector, who had Ducal Prussia confirmed to him in 1,657, and 
by the convention of Walau and Bromberg, rendered independent ot 
the crown of Poland, of which, till then, it had been a fief. In the 
time of the great elector, advantage was taken of the unsettled state 
of Europe, to increase the population, and thereby advance the 
wealth and improvement of the country in every respect. The 
revocation of the edict of Nantes in France, 1,685, contributed large- 
ly to these ends, the Prussian states being freely set open to the ref- 
ugees of all descriptions; an act of mere policy, as the elector him- 
self, though tolerant, was extremely devout and careful of the privi- 
leges, and even exemptions of the clergy. 

13. The elector, Frederic-William, died in 1,688, and was succeed- 
ed by his son Frederic, who, through the influence of the protestanl 
states, and the good- will of the emperor Leopold, to whom he had 
been of service in his contest with France, but who seems to have 
taken such a step with little judgment or consideration, became king 
in 1,701, and died in 1,713, at the very period when, by the treaty of 
Utrecht, his regal title was confirmed and generally acknowledged 
by the other states of Europe. Frederic 1. was generous, but fickle, 
superstitious, and vain; he founded the University of Hall, the Royal 
Society of Berlin, and the Academy of Nobles, but without taking 
much interest in their concerns, and chiefly at the instigation of his 
more learned consort, the princess Charlotte of Hanover; he man- 
aged, however, to augment, by many acquisitions, purchases, and 
exchanges, the extent of his dominions. 

14. His successor, Frederic-William II., is judged to have done 
much more to raise the credit and character of his new kingdom, by 
excessive prudence, and good management, and the utmost attention 
to his army ; whereby he not only repaired the losses occasioned by 
his father's extravagances, but amassed great treasures, and laid the 
foundation for those stupendous military achievements, which, in the 
next reign, advanced Prussia to that high state of glory and eminence 
which has given it such weight in the political scale of Europe. 
Frederic abolished, in 1,717, all the fiefs in his kingdom; he invited 
colonies from all parts to settle in his dominions. Like his great pred- 
ecessor and namesake, he established military schools and hospitals, 
but he was no friend to literature ; unpolished in ids manners, and 
implacable in his resentment. He added to the dominions of Prussia, 
Stettin and the greater part of Swedish Pomerania. 

15. On the death of Fredeiic-Wiliiam II., in 1,740, his son, (who 
is sometimes called Frederic II., to distinguish him from the Frederic- 
Williams, and sometimes Frederic III.,) came to the throne. Of this 
monarch so much is known, and so much has already been noticed 
and recorded in the other sections of this work, that we have little 
to say here, but that he managed to raise a scattered, ill-sorted, dis- 
jointed kingdom into the first rank of power and renown ; that he 
applied himself incessantly to promote the welfare and improvement 



MODERN HISTORY. 383 

of his dominions, to augment the wealth and advance the civilization 
of his people, though, in many of his regulations and measures to 
this end, he erred occasionally as his predecessors had done, for want 
of a due knowledge of some of the first principles of political econ- 
omy, a science at that period little cultivated. Frederic died August, 
1,786, in the seventy fifth year of his age, and forty-seventh of his 
reign, more admired than esteemed ; more distinguished for bravery 
in the field, wisdom in the cabinet, and literary attainments, than for 
any virtues or qualities of a nobler nature. He has had the reputa- 
tion of being the author of two very important measures, the parti- 
tion of Poland, and the armed neutrality. The credit of the fiist 
may probably be very fairly divided between himself and Catherine 
of Russia ; the second, as a matter of self-defence, and a jealous re- 
gard for the liberty of the seas, reflects no dishonour on his character. 
It is a point that should be better settled than it seems to be, by the 
strict rules of international and maritime law. 

16. Frederic was succeeded by his nephew Frederic-William. Of 
the part taken by this monarch in support of the house of Orange, 
in 1,787, of his opposition to the French, in 1,792, and of the share 
he had in the two last partitions of Poland, in 1,793 and 1,795, by 
which he gained the territories, first of South Prussia, and, secondly 
of South-eastern Prussia, an account has been given elsewhere. 
Frederic-William II. died in 1,797, aged fifty-three, leaving the crown 
to his son, the present king, Frederic 111., who, as he came to the 
throne at the moment that Buonaparte began his extraordinary ca- 
reer, in disturbance of the peace of the continent, was necessarily 
involved in all the difficulties and confusion of those times, as has 
been already shown : he joined the armed neutrality in 1,800, caused 
Hamburgh to be shut against the English, and occupied the states of 
Hanover, 1,801, which being annexed by France to Prussia, in 1,805» 
in exchange for a part of the duchy of Cleves, Anspach, Bareuth, 
Neufchatel, and Valengin, provoked the resentment of England and 
Sweden. In 1,806, the king rashly engaged in war with France, and 
was nearly deprived of his kingdom : the losses he sustained by the 
treaty of Tilsit, have been mentioned. (Sect. XVI.) In 1,812, Fred- 
eric was compelled by France to furnish an auxiliary force against 
Russia, but was afterwards, on the retreat of the French from Mos- 
cow, able to break through this engagement, and conclude a treaty 
of neutrality with Russia. From this time to the abdication of Na- 
poleon, Prussia acted in close confederacy with the allies, the king 
being constantly with his army till (heir entrance into Paris, March, 
1,814. On the return of Buonaparte, 1,815, the Prussians were the 
first to take the field, under their celebrated general, prince Blucher, 
and in the battle of Waterloo, reaped the splendid glories of that day 
in conjunction with the British. Since that time, Prussia has enjoyed 
a state of peace, though not undisturbed as to her internal concerns. 
17. The crown of Sweden, on the demise of Charles XII., 1,718, 
(see Sect. LXVI. § 9. Part 11.) was conferred on his youngest sister^ 
Ulrica Eleanora, by the free election of the states. On the death of 
Charles, whose strange proceedings had greatly exhausted the king- 
dom, and occasioned the actual loss of many provinces, an opportuni- 
ty was taken, once more, to limit the kingly power, which had been 
rendered almost absolute in the reign ol Charles XI., and to make 
the crown elective. The new queen, who was married to the hered-* 
itary prince of Hesse Cassel, and who had been offered the crown in 
prejudice of the son and representative of her elder sister, the 



384 MODERN HISTORY. 

duchess of Holstein Gottorp, readily submitted to the conditions pro- 
posed by the states for limiting the royal authority, but soon aftei her 
accession resigned the government to her royal consort, v' o was 
crowned by the title of Frederic I., 1,720. 

18. The new king ruled the nation with little dignity and less spir- 
it; submitting to every thing imposed on him by the states, till the 
government became more republican than monarchical The Swe- 
dish territories were also much reduced during the early part of his 
reign. In the course of the yoars 1,719, 1,720, 1,721, Sweden ceded 
to Hanover, Bremen, anlVeiden; to Prussia, the town or Stettin, 
and to Russia, Livonia, Esthonia, Ingria, Wiburg, a part of Carelia 
and several islands. 

19. It was during this reign that the rival factions of the Hats and 
Caps had their origin, and which caused great trouble ; the former 
reing generally under the influence of France, the latter of Russia. 
To deter the latter from assisting the queen of Hungary, in the war 
that took place on the death of Charles VI., France made use of its 
influence with the Hats, to involve Sweden in hostilities with Russia, 
for which she was ill-prepared, and from which she suffered consid- 
erably. Her losses were restored to her in some measure by the 
peace of Abo, 1,743, but upon the positive condition that Frederic 
should adopt as his heir and successor, at the instance of the czarina, 
Adolphus-Frederic, bishop of Lubec, uncle to the duke of Holstein 
Gottorp, presumptive heir to the throne of Russia, and nephew to 
the queen of Sweden, who would more willingly have had the latter 
for her successor. 

20. Adolphus-Frederic came to the crown in 1,751. The same 
factions which had disturbed the former reign continued to give him 
trouble, and though he made some endeavours to get the better ot 
foreign influence, and recover his lost authority, all his efforts were 
vain. Nothing could exceed the anarchy and confusion that prevail- 
ed, encouraged and fomented both by Russia and France, to further 
their private ends. The king is supposed to have fallen a sacrifice 
to these disturbances, dying wholly dispirited in the year 1,771. 

21. He was succeeded by his eldest son Gustavus 111., twenty-five 
years old at the time of his accession ; a Swede by birth, and an ac 
tive and spirited prince, who was bent upon recovering what hi*? 
predecessors had too tamely surrendered of their rights and prerog- 
atives; in which, being supported by France, he had the good fortune 
to succeed. Having found means to conciliate the army, and to rec 
oncile the people to an attack upon the aristocrats, who were betray 
ing the interests of the country, he established a new constitution 
1,772, with such good management and address, that the public tran 
quillity was scarcely for a moment disturbed. This new arrangement 
threw great power into the hands of the king, by leaving him the 
option of convening and dissolving the states, with the entire disposal 
of the army, navy, and all public appointments, civil, military, and 
ecclesiastical; some alterations were made in 1,739, but nothing 
could reconcile the party whom he had superseded ; at least it is 
probable that this was the occasion of the catastrophe which termi- 
nated the life of the unfortunate monarch. Towards the commence- 
ment of the French revolution, in the year 1,792, when he was pre- 
paring to assist Lewis XVI., (an unpopular undertaking,) he whs 
assassinated at a masquerade by a person encouraged, if not directly 
employed, by the discontented party of 1,772* 

22. Gustavus III. was brave, polite, well-informed, and of a ready 



MODERN HISTORY. 386 

eloquence ; but profligate in his habits of life, and careless as to mat- 
ters of religion. He promoted letters, agriculture, and commerce, 
as far as his means would enable him to do so. His measures appear 
to have been more arbitrary than his disposition. 

23. His son Gustavus IV. being only fourteen years old at the time 
of his father's death, the duke of Sudermania, brother of the deceas- 
ed king, became regent for a short time. No monarch in Europe 
manifested a greater zeal in the cause of the French royal family, 
or disgust at the arbitrary proceedings of Buonaparte, than Gustavus 
IV., but he was little able to give effect to his wishes ; his judgment 
being weak, and his forces inadequate to contend with the French, 
especially after the latter, by the treaty of Tilsit, (see Sect. XVI.) 
had found means to detach and conciliate the emperor Alexander. 
Alter this disastrous treaty, Gustavus became not only the object of 
French resentment, but of Russian rapacity. He was peremptorily 
forbidden to admit the English into his ports, and Finland was quickly 
wrested from him. The Danes also attacked him. In this dilemma, 
England would have assisted him if she could have trusted him, but, 
'o truth, his rashness and incapacity were become too apparent to 
justify any such confidence. A revolution was almost necessary, nor 
was it long before a conspiracy was formed, which, in the year 1,809, 
succeeded so far as to induce him to abdicate. His uncle, the duke 
of Sudermania, being appointed protector, and very soon afterwards 
king, by the title of Charles XIII., the states carrying their resent- 
ment against Gustavus IV. so far, as to exclude his posterity also from 
the throne. 

24. Charles XIII. submitted to new restrictions on the kingly an 
thority, and having no issue, left it to the nation to nominate an heir 
to the crown. Their first choice fell upon the prince of Augusten- 
burg, a Danish subject, but his death happening soon afterwards, not 
without suspicion of foul play, Bernadotte, one of Buonaparte's gen- 
erals, was, in a very extraordinary manner, nominated in his room by 
the king, and approved by the states. As crown prince of Sweden, 
tempted by the offer of Norway, he joined the confederacy against 
Buonaparte in 1,813, and was present at the battle of Leipzig. (See 
Sect. XX.)* On the death of Charles XIII., 1,818, he succeeded to 
the crown, and still reigns, having, by the treaty of Vienna, 1,815, 
obtained Norway, and the island of Guadaloupe. 

25. The history of Denmark during the eighteenth century, and 
beginning of the nineteenth, is very uninteresting, in a political point 
of view. Incapable of taking any leading or conspicuous part in the 
affairs of Europe, all that we know concerning her relates rather to 
other countries, as Russia, Sweden, I russia, France, and England ; in 
whose friendships and hostilities she has been compelled, by circum 
stances, to take a part, little advantageous, if not entirely detrimental, 
to her own interests. 

26. Five kings have occupied the throne since the close of the 
seventeenth century, but it will be necessary to say very little of 
them. Frederic IV., who came to the crown in 1,699, died in 1,730, 
and was succeeded by Christian VI. ; a monarch who paid great at- 
tention to the welfare of his subjects, in lightening the taxes, and en- 
couraging trade and manufactures. He reigned sixteen years, and 
was succeeded by his son Frederic V., in the year 1,746. Frederic 
trod in the footsteps of his father, by promoting knowledge, encour- 
aging the manufactures, and extending the commerce of his country. 
lie bad nearly been embroiled with Russia during the six months 

Rk 49 



386 MODERN HISTORY. 

leign of the unfortunate Peter III., who, the moment he became em- 
peror, resolved to revenge on the court of Denmark the injuries 
which had been committed on his ancestors of the house of Holstein 
Gottorp. In these attempts he was to he assisted by the king of 
Prussia. The king of Denmark prepared to resist the attacks with 
which he was threatened, but the deposition and death of the em- 
peror fortunately relieved him from all apprehensions, and he was 
able to compromise matters with Catherine II., by a treaty that was 
not to take effect till the grand duke Paul came of age. By this con- 
vention, the empress ceded to Denmark, in the name of her son, the 
duchy of Sleswick, and so much of Holstein as appertained to the 
Gottorp branch of that family, in exchange for the provinces of Ol- 
denburg and Dalmenhorst. 

27. Frederic V. died in 1,766, and was succeeded by his son Chris- 
tian VII., who, in 1,768, married the princess Caroline Matilda of 
England, sister to his majesty king George III. The principal event 
in this reign was one which involved the unhappy queen in inextric- 
able difficulties, and probably hastened her death ; but which seems 
still to be enveloped in considerable mystery. A German physician 
of the court, (Struensee,) who had risen from rather a low station in 
life to be first "minister, having rendered himself extremely obnoxious 
by a most extensive reform in all the public offices of state, civil and 
military, and which, had they succeeded, might have done him great 
credit as a statesman, was accused of intriguing with the young 
queen, and by the violence of his enemies, headed and encouraged 
by Juliana Maria, the queen-dowager, and her son prince Frederic, 
brought most ignominiously to the scaffold. The unfortunate queen 
Caroline, whose life was probably saved only by the spirited inter- 
position of the British minister, quitted Denmark after the execution 
of Struensee and his coadjutor Brandt, and having retired to Zell in 
Germany, painfully separated from her children, there ended her 
days, May 10, 1,775, in the twenty -fourth year of her age. 

28. During the latter part of his life, Christian VII., whose under- 
standing had always been weak, fell into a state of mental derange- 
ment, and the government was carried on by the queen-dowager and 
prince Frederic, as co-regents, with the aid of Barnstoff, an able and 
patriotic minister. In 1,773, the cession of Ducal Holstein to Den- 
mark by Russia took place, according to the treaty above spoken of: 
this was a very important acquisition, as giving ner the command of 
the whole Cimbrian peninsula, and enabling her, by forming a canal 
from Kiel, to connect the Baltic with the German ocean. In the 
continental wars of 1,788, 1793, Denmark remained neuter, but by 
joining the armed neutrality in 1,800, she excited the suspicions and 
resentment of Great Britain, and, being supposed to favour not only 
Russia but France, became involved in a contest, which was attended 
with losses and vexations the most melancholy and deplorable. (See 
Sect. XX. § 9.) 

29. Christian VII. died in 1,788, and was succeeded by his son 
Frederic VI., the present monarch, who had, a few years before, on 
entering the seventeenth year of his age, been admitted to his proper 
share in the government, having with singular moderation and pru- 
dence succeeded in taking the administration of affairs out of the 
hands of the queen-dowager and her party. Denmark appears to 
have suffered greatly from the peculiarity of her situation during the 
struggles arising out of the French revolution, being continually 
forced into alliances contrary to her own interests,' and made at last to 



MODERN HISTORY. 38? 

contribute more largely than almost any state, to the establishment 
of peace. The cession of Norway to Sweden, which had been held 
out by the allies as a boon to the latter power, to induce her to join 
the last confederacy against trance, beings a severe loss to Denmark, 
and very ill requited by the transfer of Pomerania and the Isle of 
Rugen, which were all that she received in exchange. 



SECTION XXIII. 

SOUTHERN STATES OF EUROPE, FROM THE CLOSE OF THE 
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 

1. The southern states of Europe underwent such extraordinary 
revolutions during the preponderance of the French under Buona- 
parte, that what happened to them during the eighteenth century, 

{>reviously to these surprising events, seems comparatively of very 
ittle consequence ; of the changes and disturbances to which they 
were subject through the interference of the French, an account is 
lo be found in the sections relating to France. 

2. Switzerland at the beginning of the eighteenth century was in- 
volved in disputes between the protestants and catholics, which were 
attended with very unpleasant circumstances. These differences, 
however, were brought to an end by a convention in 1,717, which 
established an equality of religious rights. Things remained very 
quiet in most of the cantons from this time to the French revolution; 
with the exception of the towns of Geneva and Berne, and a few 
other places, where a disposition was manifested to limit and restrain 
the aristocratical governments, but which only led at that time to 
such iudicious reforms, as were sufficient to appease the ardour of the 
people. These disputes, however, may be held to have contributed 
to the evils which befel the country afterwards. Though the states 
endeavoured to preserve their neutrality during the progress of the 
French revolution, it was not possible, while revolutionary principles 
were afloat, to keep the country so free from internal disputes and 
commotions, or so united, as to deter the French from interfering. 
Geneva had already been cajoled out of her independence, but the 
first decisive occasion afforded to the French of taking an active part 
in the affairs of Swisserland, arose out of the disputes, in 1,798, rel- 
ative to the Pays de Vaud ; the gentry and citizens of which, not 
thinking themselves sufficiently favoured by the rulers of Berne and 
Fribourg, began to be clamorous for a change. The peasantry of 
Basle aLso, instigated by an emissary of the French directory, de 
manded a new constitution. These disputes opened the way for the 
introduction of French troops, first under the orders of the directory, 
and afterwards under Buonaparte, as has been shown in our account 
of France ; and from that period to the conclusion of the war in 
1,815, Switzerland can scarcely be said to have known a year of 
repose. 

3. Of the condition of Venice during the eighteenth century, much 
may be collected from the foregoing sections. She lost the Morea in 
1,718, but acquired in exchange some towns in Albania and Dalmatia. 
Some ecclesiastical reforms took place in the middle of the last cen- 
tury, at which period many convents were suppressed, and the Jesuits 
expelled. Venice endeavoured to remain neuter during the first 



388 MODERN HISTORY. 

movements of the French revolution, but was soon drawn into the 
vortex when Buonaparte assumed the command of the French armv. 
By the treaty of Campo Formio, 1,797, (see Sect. XV.) her doom 
was sealed, and this celebrated republic entirely overthrown. 

4. In Rome, since the close of the eighteenth century, there has 
been a succession of many popes, though the last two have filled the 
papal chair longer than might be expected, in a sovereignty where 
the election is generally made from persons advanced in years. Lit- 
tle more than the " magni nominis umbra" remained to the popes at 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, of that temporal power 
which at one time or other had shaken every throne in Europe. 
The clergy of France in particular had effectually asserted that king9 
and princes, in temporal concerns, were independent of the ecclesi- 
astical authority. Clement XL, who was of the family of the Albani, 
and assumed the tiara in the year 1,700, opposed the erection of 
Prussia into a kingdom ; an extraordinary measure of interposition, 
and which had so little weight as almost to expose his court to ridi- 
cule. He espoused the French interests in the contest concerning 
the Spanish succession, though in 1,708 he was compelled, by the 
vigorous proceedings of the emperor, to acknowledge Charles III. 
king of Spain, From this pope the famous bull unigenitus was ex- 
torted by the Jesuits, to the great disturbance of France, and the 
whole Romish church ; and the consequences of which, indeed, may 
be traced even in the present state and circumstances of Europe. 

5. Pope Clement XI. died in 1,721, and was succeeded by the car- 
dinal Michael Angelo Gonti, who took the name of Innocent XIII., but 
being far advanced in years, lived a very short time, dying on the 3d 
of March, 1,724, and on the 29th of May following, cardinal Ursini, 
Benedict XUL, was chosen his successor. During his papacy, Com- 
machio, which had been lost to the Roman see in the time of Clem- 
ent XL, was recovered ; Benedict was zealous for the honour of the 
bull unigenitus, and in conjunction with cardinal Fleury, succeeded 
in procuring the cardinal de Noailles, one of the most respectable and 
zealous opposers of it in France, to subscribe it. He had a disposi- 
tion to unite the Roman, Greek, Lutheran, and reformed churches, 
but could not succeed. He died 1 ,730, more admired for his virtues 
and talents, than praised for his wisdom in the management of affairs. 

6. Benedict XIII. was succeeded by Clement XII., Laurence Corsi- 
ni, a Florentine, whose public acts were of little importance. He 
had disputes with the king of Sardinia, the republic of Venice, with 
the empire and Spain ; but much of his pontificate was passed in 
tranquillity. He died on the 6th of February, 1,740. He made con- 
siderable and valuable additions to the Vatican library. On his 
death, a struggle arose between the Albani and Corsini families, and 
the conclave was much agitated. The former prevailed, and suc- 
ceeded in elevating cardinal Prosper Lambertini to the papal chair, 
who took the title of Benedict XIV. His government of the church 
was extremely mild, and he was regarded as no favourer of the 
Jesuits, who, during his pontificate, fell into disrepute in Portugal, 
the first symptom of their decline and fall. This pope was a man of 
most amiable manners, a great writer, and possessed of considerable 
learning. He corrected several abuses, particularly such as had 
arisen out of the privileges of asylum. He carefully endeavoured to 
keep clear of disputes and contests, thinking the times unfavourable 
to the papal authority. He died in the year 1,758. 

7. Ihe cardinal Rezzonico succeeded Benedict XIV., and took the 



MODEKN HISTORY. 389 

title of Clement XIII. His pontificate is memorable for being the 
aera of the expulsion of the order of Jesuits, (in some instances un- 
der circumstances of very unjustifiable precipitation*) from Portugal, 
France, Spain, Naples, Sicily, Parma, Venice, and Corsica, notwith- 
standing the utmost efforts of the pope to uphold them ; many of 
them were actually landed from Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Sicily, 
on the pope's territories, as though it belonged to him to maintain 
them when abandoned by the catholic sovereigns. The pope re- 
monstrated, but with little effect. The French seized upon Avignon, 
and the Neapolitans upon Benevento, to induce him to abandon the 
order, but he would not. Clement XIII. died suddenly, on February 
2, 1,769, and was succeeded by the cele orated Ganganelli, who, in 
compliment to his predecessor and patron, took the title of Clement 
XIV. This enlightened pontiff was sensible of the decline of the 
papal authority, and of the prudence of conciliating, if not of 
humouring, the sovereigns of Europe, against whom, he was accus- 
tomed to observe, the Alps and the Pyrenees were not sufficient pro- 
tection. It was in consequence of this leaning towards the temporal 
princes, that he secured their concurrence to his being made pope, 
his freedom of thought and manners being otherwise obnoxious to 
the court of Rome. The conclave, by which he was elected, was 
tumultuous ; but at length the cardinal de Bernis succeeded in pro- 
curing him to be chosen pope, May, 1,769. It is weli known that 
this accomplished pontiff, in the year 1,773, after much deliberation, 
suppressed the order of Jesuits ; and, dying in the next year, suspi- 
cions were raised that he had been poisoned, but, on opening his 
body, in the presence of the French and Spanish ministers, enemies 
to the Jesuits, it was pronounced otherwise. There is little doubt 
but that he regretted, as head of the church, the step he had been 
compelled to take ; it procured for him, indepd, the restitution of 
Avignon and Benevento, which had been taken from his predecessor; 
but in consenting to the dissolution of an order so essential to the 
papal dominion, he must, in all probability, have yielded to the power 
of irresistible circumstances. He was of an amiable disposition, 
much given to literature, indefatigable in business, and highly re- 
spected by foreign nations, plain and simple in his manners, and very 
disinterested. g 

8. Early in the year 1,775, Angiolo Braschi, a descendant of the 
noble family of Cesena, was chosen to till the chair vacated by the 
death of Ganganelli. The new pope took the title of Pius VI. He 
is said to have been elected contrary to the wishes and intentions of 
moM. of the members of the conclave, a circumstance not unlikely to 
happen amidst such a contrariety of interests, and the complicated 
forms of proceeding. As he had thus risen to supreme power, he 
acted afterwards more independently of the cardinals, than any of 
his predecessors. 

9: He had taken the name of Pins VI., in acknowledged detiance 
of a prevailing superstition, expressed in the following verses, and 
applied to Alexander VI. particularly, if not to others. 

« Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, sextus et iste 
Semper sub sextis, perdita Roma fait." 

He is known to have, in his troubles, reflected on this rather sin- 
gular circumstance, with sorrow and dismay. Certainly no pope had 
greater indignities to sustain, nor could any have greater cause to 
Kk2 



390 MODERN HISTORY. 

apply to themselves the ominous presages conveyed in the line9 just 
cited; for in the year 1,798 his government was overthrown, and 
Rome lost. The French took possession of it and proclaimed the 
restoration of the Roman republic. 

10. The pope's troubles began in 1,796, when he was compelled 
to cede to Buonaparte the cities of Bologna, Urbino, Ferrara, and * 
Ancona, to pay twenty-one millions of francs, and deliver to the 
French commissioners, sent for the purposes, pictures, busts, statues, 
and vases, to a large amount. He afterwards endeavoured to raise 
an army to recover what he had lost ; but he had formed a very 
wrong estimate of the power of his opponent. He was soon com- 
pelled, February 12, 1,797, to sue for peace, and submit to further 
sacrifices at the will of Buonaparte, whom he had certainly very in- 
cautiously provoked. By the peace of Tolentino, he renounced all 
right to Avignon and the Vanaissin, Bologna, Ferrara, and the Romag- 
na. On the entrance of the French in 1,798, the Vatican and Quii 
inal palaces, and private mansions of the obnoxious amongst the 
nobility, were stripped of all their ornaments and riches. The peo- 
ple who had invited the French, fancied themselves free, but had 
very little cause to thank their deliverers. The pope was forcibly 
removed from Rome, at the age of eighty, and, by order of the 
French directory, transferred from place to place, as the course of 
events dictated, from Rome to Florence, from Florence to Briancon, 
and from Briancon to Valence. Another removal to Dijon is said to 
have been in contemplation, had not the decline of his health become 
too visible to render it necessary. He died at the latter place on the 
29th of August, 1,799, in the eighty-second year of his age, and 
twenty-fourth of his pontificate. 

1 1. Pius VI. was correct in his manners, and a patron of genius, 
particularly of the fine arts. He spent much money on buildings, 
notwithstanding the distressed state of the finances, and devoted large 
sums to the draining of the Pontine marshes, in which almost im- 
practicable undertaking, he partly succeeded. He endeavoured to 
correct the abuses of sanctuary, which had been carried so far as to 
give impunity to hired assassins, much to the disgrace of those who 
protected them. It deserves to be recorded of him, that he display- 
ed great magnanimity, as well as pious resignation, when dragged 
from his dominions ; and though he felt severely the wrongs that had 
been committed against him by the French and the infatuated Ro- 
mans, he died tranquilly and serenely. 

12. It is remarkable that he had scarcely been dead a month, when 
Rome was delivered from the hands of its oppressors, and given up 
to the British, whose fleet, under commodore Trowbridge, had block- 
ed up the port of Civita Vecchia. Those who had favoured the re- 
publican cause were permitted to retire, and the French garrison 
marched out with the honours of war. 

13. In the month of March, 1,800, a conclave of cardinals, under 
the protection of the emperor and other catholic powers, met at 
Venice to elect a successor to Pius VI., and was not long in fixing 
upon the cardinal Chiaremonte, bishop of Tivoli, the present pope 
Pius VII. In a few weeks after his election, he set out for his new 
dominions, and arrived at Rome on the 9th of July. In the month 
of September, 1,801, he had the satisfaction of concluding a concor* 
datum with the French republic, by which, under the auspices of 
Buonaparte, then first consul, the Roman catholic religion was re- 
established there. Not only heresy, but irUidellty and atheism, had 



MODERN HISTORY. 391 

been so openly encouraged and avowed by the French revolutionists, 
that Pius appears to have thought no concessions too great to ac- 
complish this end ; for the terms of the agreement undoubtedly sub- 
jected the Gallican church entirely to the civil government, canoni- 
cal institution being almost the only privilege reserved to the pope, 
and every possible encouragement being, at the same time, given to 
the protestant churches, Lutheran and Calvinistic. 

13. It was very soon discovered, that the new head of the Roman 
church, was to be made to bow as low to the authority of Buonaparte 
as his predecessor. In 1 ,804 Pius VII. was summoned to Paris to 
officiate at the coronation of the French emperor ; and though in 
the year following he declined attending a similar ceremony at 
Milan, as has been already shown, it seems only to have exposed him 
to greater sacrifices. In 1,808 he was deprived of Urbino, Ancona, 
Macerata, and Camerino, and soon alter his temporal sovereignty 
was formally dissolved, and the papal territories annexed to France. 
Rome was declared to be a free and imperial city : the court of in- 
quisition, the temporal jurisdiction of the clergy, the right of asylum, 
and other privileges were abolished, and the title of king of Rome ap- 
propriated to the heir of the French empire. Pius was conveyed 
first to Grenoble, afterwards to Savona, and finally, in 1,812, to Fon- 
tainebleau, where, for reasons unknown, he was once more acknowl- 
edged as a sovereign, till the advance of the allies upon Paris, at last, 
Erocured him his liberty; and in 1,814 he was reinstated ; he made 
is solemn entrance into Rome on the 24th of May ; and in 1,815, 
by the arrangements of the congress of Vienna, his forfeited estates 
were re-annexed to the papal dominions. His restoration of the 
order i)f Jesuits and of the court of inquisition, on his return, occa- 
sioneu some concern to the greater part of Europe : but his holiness 
has generally had the credit of being a man of sense, prudence, and 
moderation. 



SECTION XXIV. 
OF INDIA, OR HINDOOSTAN. 

1. India or Hindoostan having largely engaged the attention of 
Europe since the close of the seventeenth century, may deserve 
some distinct notice, though little is to be added to what has already 
been related in former sections, of the political events and transac- 
tions which have occurred in that remote region of the globe, during 
the periodtilluded to. 

2. The celebrated Aurungzebe, who occupied the throne of Del- 
hi, at the commencement of the eighteenth century, lived to the 
year 1,707. In him the spirit of the great Timur, from whom he 
was the eleventh in descent, seemed to revive. He was brave, but 
cruel. He attained to a great age, being nearly a hundred years 
old when he died, having succeeded in rendering almost the whole 
of the peninsula subject to his sway, from the tenth to the thirty-fifth 
degree of latitude, and nearly as much in longitude. 

3. But if Aurungzebe thus raised in his own person the credit of 
the mogul throne, its glory also perished with him. A sad scene of 
confusion ensued upon his death. He nad himself, indeed, waded to 
the throne through the blood of his own kindred. After deposing 
his father, two of his brothers were slain in contending for the crown. 



392 MODERN HISTORY. 

But such was the nature, generally, of the political revolutions of 
those countries, that had not this been the case, the life of Aurungze- 
he himself might probably have been sacrificed to similar views and 
purposes. He is said to have bitterly repented of his misdoings be- 
fore he died. 

4. No sooner, however, was he dead, than the most violent con- 
tests arose between his own sons, two of whom, Azem and Kaum 
Buksh, perished in their opposition to their elder brother, who be- 
came emperor, under the title of Bahader Shah. The throne, in- 
deed, was such an object of contention, that, in the small space of 
eleven years, five princes, who attained to the throne, and six, who 
were candidates for it, successively fell victims to the lusts and pas- 
sions of their semi-barbarous competitors. It was in the reign of 
Feroksere, who was deposed in 1,717, that the English East India 
Company obtained the famous firman or grant, by which their goods 
of export and import were exempted from duties, and which has been 
regarded as their commercial charter in India ; no other European 
companies being similarly indulged. 

5. In the time of Mahmud or Muhammed Shah, who came to the 
throne in the year 1,718, and who was engaged in disputes with some 
of his most powerful neighbours and dependents, the celebrated 
usurper of the Persian throne, Nadir Shah, encouraged, or even in- 
vited, as it has been said, by some of the discontented princes, particu- 
larly the subahdar of the JDeckan, invaded the dominions of the Mo- 
gul, and with such success, as in the year 1,739, to seize upon Delhi, 
the capital, with all its treasures, and compel the unhappy sultan, to 
surrender, with the utmost ignominy, his crown and sceptre. He 
was, indeed, afterwards restored, but with the loss of all his domin- 
ions west of the Indus, together with jewels and treasures to an in- 
calculable amount ; some indiscreet insult, offered to the Persians, 
having been the alleged provocation for delivering the city up to 
plunder, and the inhabitants to the sword, with every cruelty and in- 
dignity attendant upon such misfortunes. This miserable capital 
afterwards underwent a second visitation of the same description, 
from one of the followers of Nadir Shah, Abdallah, who had., indeed, 
been forced into his service, but found means to take advantage of 
his master's victories, by seizing upon the territories west of the In- 
dus, ceded to Nadir by the unfortunate mogul, and erecting a sove- 
reignty for himself at Candahar. Nadir Shah was assassinated in his 
tent, in 1,747. 

6. By the invasion of the Persians, the power and glory of the 
moguls may be said to have been brought to an end. From that 
period the subordinate states, princes, and viceroys, began to aspire 
to a degree of independence, and to acquire a consequence before 
unknown ; the mogul himself becoming a mere nominal sovereign. 
Those who were most raised at this time by the depression of the 
sultanic authority, appear to have been — 

The Nizam or Subahdar, of the Deckan ; the Nabot of Arcot, oi 
the Carnatic; the Subahdar of Bengal; the Nabob of Oude; the 
Rajahpoote Princes of Agimere ; the Mahrattas; the Seiks; the 
Rohillas, and the Jats, 

The disputes and differences that took place between these several 
powers, after they had shaken off the yoke of the mogul, opened 
the door for the interference of the European settlers, towards the 
middle of the eighteenth century. (See Sect. VI. § 2.) The French 
first, and afterwards the English, contrived to take advantage of the 



MODERN HISTORY 393 

*lval elaims set up by the different native powers, and by rendering 
them assistance against each other, and it is to be feared greatly fo- 
menting their quarrels, soon became acquainted with the manifest 
superiority of their own tactics, and the influence this must give them 
in such contests. The French went farther, and first hit upon the 
expedient of training the natives in the European manner, and in- 
corporating them with their own armies; these were called Sepoys. 

7. It was not long before the French and English, who had at first 
only taken the field as auxilaries, became opposed to each other as 
principals ; in which conflicts the English succeeded beyond all ex- 
pectation, and instead of being driven out of the peninsula themselves, 
which was evidently in the view of the French under Dupleix, in 
the year 1,751 and 1,752, found means to establish themselves there, 
through the victories of Clive, to the exclusion of all other European 
nations, except for purposes purely commercial. 

8. Clive has justly been regarded as the founder of the British em- 
pire in India ; he was the first to procure for the company grants of 
territory and assignments of revenue, which totally changed the char- 
acter of our connexion with that country, and rendered the native 
princes, even the mogul himself subservient to our purposes. The 
English had received great provocation from the subahdar of Bengal, 
in an attack upon Calcutta, and Clive was selected by admiral Wat- 
son to recover from Sourajud Dowlah the town and fort, which had 
been surrendered to him. At the battle of Plassey, 1,757, he not on- 
ly succeeded in the recoveiy of Calcutta, but in the deposition of the 
subahdar, and having appointed his general in his room, obtained a 
grant of all the effects and factories of the French in Bengal. Bahar, 
and Orissa, and money contributions to the immense amount of 
£2,750,000 sterling, exclusive of private gratuities. 

9. It would have been well if these advantages could have been 
acquired with less loss of credit to the nation than was actually the 
case ; but there was too much in these first steps towards a territorial 
establishment, to feed the ambition and cupidity of those intrusted 
with the management of affairs, to render it probable that they would 
keep clear of abuses. The opportunities that occurred of intermed- 
dling with the native powers, were eagerly seized upon as occasions 
for enriching the servants of the company, (drawn from home in ex- 
pectation of making rapid fortunes,) at the expense of the company 
itself, whose affairs were in danger, not only of becoming more em- 
barrassed by the extraordinary expenses of such interference, but by 
the alienation of the minds of the natives, under circumstances little 
short of the most determined plunder and persecution. In the man- 
agement of the new-acquired territories and inland trade, it is no 
longer to be doubted that the natives suffered in every possible man- 
ner,' from the most unreasonable monopolies, exorbitant duties im- 
posed on articles of general consumption, abuses in regard to leases, 
and fiscal oppressions ; so that the British name became dishonored, 
and it was found to be absolutely expedient that some change should 
take place in the admistration of affairs so remote from the seat of 
all rule and direction, and which, from simply commercial, were now 
clearly become political and military. 

10. The charter of the company being subject to periodical re- 
newals, afforded opportunities for the interference of the legislature, 
nor was the company itself backward under any pressure of pecu- 
niary embarrassments, to apply to government for assistance. On 
one of these occasions) the great change that had taken place in the 



394 MODERN HISTORY. 

elate of things in India, induced the government at home to claim for 
the crown all revenues arising from any new acquisitions made by 
military force, and in order to repress the inordinate proceedings of 
the company's servants, of which the natives, the public at home- 
and the company itself, had but too much reason to complain, gov 
ernment also insisted upon taking into its own hands the political 
jurisdiction of India. 

1 1. These claims and regulations were first proposed in parliament, 
November, 1 ,772, and may be said to have laid the foundation foi 
that enlarged system of administration and control which has prevail- 
ed since, though under different modifications, from lord North's bill 
in 1,773 to Mr. Pitt's in 1,784. By this latter bill, a board of control, 
composed of certain commissioners of the rank of privy counsellors, 
was established, the members of which were to be appointed by the 
king, and removable at his pleasure. This board was authorized to 
check, superintend, and control the civil and military government 
and revenue of the company ; a high tribunal also, for the trial of 
Indian delinquents, was proposed at the same time. The manage- 
ment of their commercial concerns was left in the hands of the com 
pany ; the political and civil authority only transferred to the crown 
In 1,786, some alterations were made in the bill; the offices of com 
mander-in-chief and governor-general were for the future to be unit- 
ed in the same person, and a power given to the governor-general to 
decide in opposition to the majority of the council. The presidencies 
of Madras and Bombay had been previously, by lord North's bill, 
placed under the superintendency of the governor and council oi 
Bengal, but by this bill that point also was confirmed. 

12. When this bill was passed, it appeared from the preamble, tc 
be decidedly the opinion of parliament, of government, as well as of 
the court of directors, whose orders had for some time breathed the 
same spirit, that " to pursue schemes of conquest and extension of 
dominion in India, were measures repugnant to the wish, the honour 
and the policy of the nation." It had previously been resolved by 
the house, " that the maintenance of an inviolable character toi 
moderation, good faith, and scrupulous regard to treaty, ought to 
have been the simple grounds on which the British government 
should have endeavoured to establish an influence superior to othei 
Europeans, over the minds of the native powers in India ; and that the 
danger and discredit arising from the forfeiture of this pre-eminence 
could not be compensated by the temporary success of any plan ot 
violence and injustice." 

13. Such was the tenor of the resolutions of the house of commons 
in 1,782, recognised as the principle of the bill of 1,784, and farther 
confirmed by an act passed in 1,793. In all we perceive an evident 
allusion to those mal-practices of the company's servants, which will 
tor ever, it is to be feared, remain on record, to tarnish the lustre of 
our first victories and territorial acquisitions in India, and to detract 
from the reputation of persons, whose names might otherwise have 
justly stood high on the list of those, from whose pre-eminent talents 
and abilities, the nation has derived both glory and advantage. 

14. The English system of jurisprudence had been extended to 
India by lord North's bill of 1,773, but under disadvantages extreme- 
ly embarrassing. The difference of manners, habits, customs; the 
difficulty, if not impossibility, of mingling two codes, so very dissimi- 
lar as those of Britain and Hindoostan ; the forms and technicalities 
of the English law, totally unknown to the native courts ■ the an- 



MODERN HISTORY. 395 

parent kijWflfca of subjecting a people to laws to which they were 
no parlies, and to which, of course, they had given no sanction; 
these, and other difficulties have been acknowledged ly those who 
have had to administer the laws under the new system, in India, 
as having prevented those happy effects taking place, which might 
otherwise have been expected from the introduction of the English 
jurisprudence. Since the passing of Mr. Pitfs bill, however, much 
benefit has certainly been derived from the residence and superin- 
tendence of noblemen of the highest rank and abilities, as governors, 
general, and of judges the most enlightened, to preside in the Indian 
courts. The first reforms that were attempted under the new system, 
though not so successful as might be wished, proceeded from those 
two most amiable and highly respected personages, the marquis 
Cornwallis, and sir William Jones. 

15. From the conduct of lord Cornwallis, and his successors lord 
Teignmouth, and lord Mornington, now marquis Wellesley, it is ex- 
tremely evident that the system of neutrality and forbearance pre- 
scribed by the resolutions of parliament, and preamble of the act of 
1,784, would have been scrupulously adhered to had it been possible, 
consistently with the security of our settlements; but towards the 
close of the eighteenth century, the English were compelled to de- 
fend themselves from the most formidable designs of the celebrated 
Hyder Ally and his son Tippoo Saib, who unquestionablv had it in 
view to exterminate^ the British, and probably all other Europeans, 
fiom the peninsula of India. 

16. The result of these conflicts, which took place in Mysore, and 
the Carnatic, was the total overthrow of a Mahomedan dynasty of 
only two sovereigns, commencing with a mere adventurer oi most 
singular character, who having waded through crimes to his object, 
succeeded in placing himself and his son on one of the most brilliant 
thrones of the east, and in a condition to give very considerable 
trouble to the English government there, 

17. Hyder Ally, the father of Tippoo, was born in 1,722- and died 
in 1,782. Tippoo was born in 1,753, and lost his life in the celebrat- 
ed assault oi the capital of his new dominions, Seringapatam, inl,799> 
They were very different men, having been differently educated. 
The former had strong natural powers, which compensated for his 
wan4 of acquired knowledge ; the latter was vain of his scanty pro- 
ficiency in Persian literature, and a few other attainments, to a degree 
of absurdity ; fancying himself the greatest philosopher of the age, 
the wisest, bravest, and handsomest of men. Hyder was tolerant in 
religious concerns to a degree of indifference ; Tippoo, a bigoted 
mussulman, to the utmost pitch of intolerance and persecution. The 
former meddled little with religion. The latter contemplated changes 
in Islamism, as in every thing else, having, as a preliminary, substi- 
tuted a new era in his coins, dating from the birth instead of the flight 
of Mahomet. Both father and son were devoid of principle, but the 
former was much the greatest man. 

18. It was owing to the vigilance and prompt measures of lord 
Wellesley, that Tippoo was so opportunely overthrown ; though his 
proceedings were weak, they were carried on with much duplicity 
and deceit, and upon principles of alliance which in other circum- 
stances might have become very alarming. Under the most positive 
and repeated assurances of peace and amity, he had intrigued with 
France, Turkey, the king of Candahar, (a descendant of the cele- 
brated Affghan chief Abdallah,) the Nizam of the Deckan, and the 



396 MODERJN HISTORY. 

Mahrattas, for the express object of forming a strong confederacy fo 
extirpate the English ; in his negotiations with the courts of Canda- 
har and Constantinople, indeed, he had declared vengeance against 
the infidels generally, whence it has been reasonably concluded that 
nis schemes of destruction embraced all the European powers, the 
French not excepted, had his projects but been successful. Fortu- 
nately, lord Wellesley detected ail his plots, and when it became 
impossible to treat farther with him on any lair grounds, by the 
most decisive measures, and rapid movements, effectually avert- 
ed the blow that had been decidedly aimed at the British empire in 
India. 

19. On the fall of Seringapatam, the Mysorean dominions were, 
by allotments to the allies, the British, the Nizam, and the Mahrattas, 
nearly reduced to the limits by which they were bounded before the 
usurpation of Hyder, and, a surviving representative of the Hindoo 
dynasty, a child only rive years old, placed on the throne, with an 
acknowledged dependency on the British government. The de- 
scendants of Tippoo being, however, liberally provided for. and 
settled in the Carnatic, disturbances in the northern and north-western 
parts of the peninsula, among the Mahratta chieftains, occupied the 
attention of the English army, in the early part of the present cen- 
tury, when a fresh opportunity was afforded of triumphing over the 
intrigues of the French, who headed the adverse forces, and endeav- 
oured to procure for that government a cession of the districts in- 
trusted to their care ; but the issue of the contest was entirely in 
favour of the British. From this time the ascendancy of the British 
in the peninsula has continued so decidedly established, as to render 
it needless to say any thing of the other European settlements. 

20. The acquisition of territory in India, together with the new 
system of government and control, by rendering it necessary for pec- 
sons of learning and talent to reside there, have had the effect of im- 
proving our knowledge of those remote countries, and opened to us 
a field of inquiry and research, peculiarly interesting and curious. 
Among those who may be considered as having most particularly 
contributed to these ends, we may reckon Mr. Wilkinsand sir William 
Jones : the former by having first, with any real success, pursued the 
study of the Sanscrit language, the root of all the vernacular dialects 
of the peninsula, and thereby opened to the contemplation of the 
historian, the antiquarian, the philosopher, and the poet, whatever is 
interesting in the literature ot all the nations east of the Indus ; and 
the latter, by instituting the first philosophical society in those parts, 
and inviting the learned, in all quarters of the globe, to propose que 
lies in every branch of Asiatic history, natural and civil, on the phi 
losophy, mathematics, antiquities, and polite literature of Asia, and 
on eastern arts^ both liberal and mechanic, as guides to the investiga 
tions of the persons resident in the peninsula, qualified to pursue 
such inquiries on the spot, and communicate to the world in general 
the results of their discoveries. 

21. To this learned society, first established in Bengal, under the 
presidency of sir William Jones, we are indebted for all those curious 
papers preserved in the several volumes of the Asiatic Researches 
and the Indian Annual Register, and which have so largely contrib- 
uted to enlarge the boundaries of oriental literature. To the names 
already mentioned, as having taken the lead in this curious branch of 
science, we may add those of our countrymen, Halhed, Vansittart, 
Shore, (lord Teagamouth, the second president, on the death of sir 



MODERN HISTORY. 397 

William, 1.794,, Davie, Colebrook, Wilford,RenneIl, Hunter, Fender, 

Marsden, Orme, Carey, Buchanan, Barlow, Harrington, Edmonstone, 
Khkpatrick, &c. 

22. At the commencement of the present century, it became ob- 
vious to the marquis of Wellesley, then governor-general, that the 
state oi the British empire in India absolutely required, that the per- 
sons sent out to discharge the important functions of magistrates, judges* 
ambassadors, and governors of provinces, should have some better 
means of qualifying themselves for such high stations and complicated 
duties, than were then in existence. His lordship's view of these 
matters, as recorded in the minute of council, dated August 18, 1,800, 
s nighly deserving of consideration, and his plan for forming and en- 
dowing a college for these purposes at Calcutta, reflect the highest 
credit on his wisdom and discernment, though the latter has not been 
carried into execution in the way his lordship proposed, for want of 
funds. The East India College, since established in Hertfordshire, 
may be considered as entirely owing to the adoption by the company 
of the enlightened principles contained in the minute alluded to. A 
system of oriental education is now effectually established, which, 
though on a much more contracted scale, and in a great measure con- 
fined to England, bids fair, it is to be hoped, to accomplish most of 
the ends contempvated by his lordship in his original design of founding 
a college at Fort William, in Bengal, namely, " to perpetuate the im 
mense advantages derived to the company from their possessions in 
India, and to establish the British empire in India on the solid founda 
tions of ability, integrity, virtue, and religion." 

23. Of the studies to be pursued, according to lord Wellesley's 
plan, a competent notion may be formed from the following list of 

Srofessorships and lectures : — Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit, Hindostanee, 
engal, Telinga, Mahratta, Tamula, and Canara, languages ; Mahom- 
edan law ; Hindoo law ; Ethics, civil jurisprudence, and the iaw of 
nations ; English law ; political economy, commercial institutions and 
interests of the East India Company, geography and mathematics; 
modern languages of Europe ; Greek, Latin, and English classics . 
general history, ancient and modern ; the history and antiquities o* 
Hindoostan and the Deckan ; natural history ; botany, chemistry, and 
astronomy. 

24. Though the company saw reason to withhold its countenance 
from the original institution, the studies above chalked out have been, 
in a great measure, adopted in the Hertfordshire college, and its gen- 

. eral success hitherto has been pronounced answerable to the expecta- 
tions of those who were most solicitous in effecting its establishment 
The education of the young men, destined to till the civil offices in 
India, is now therefore partly European and partly Asiatic ; for so 
much of the collegiate establishment in India may be said to remain, 
that there the students, who have been taught in England the elements 
of Asiatic languages, are enabled to advance to perfection, and to be- 
come masters of the several dialects prevailing through the peninsula. 
Though the original plan of the noble founder of the college of Fort 
Y\ llliam has not yet been adopted by the East India Company, jet to 
apply the words of one of the most distinguished of our orientalists, 
" Good has been done, which cannot be undone ; sources of useful 
knowledge, moral instruction, and political utility, have been opened 
to the natives of India, which can never be closed." In 1,814, all 
ecclesiastical establishment, under the immediate auspices of govern. 
ment, was formed for India, the right reverend Dr. Thomas Fanshaw 
L I 



393 MODERN HISTORY. 

M. iddleton being consecrated at the archiepiscopal palace, at Lambeth, 
the first bishop of Calcutta. 

It must surprise the English reader to be told, that the population 
of the British empire in India has been lately estimated at 90,000,000 . 



STATE OF ARTS, SCIENCES, RELIGION, LAWS, GOVERN- 
MENT, &c. 

1. The historical events of the eighteenth century have, we must 
confess, been found to be of such magnitude and importance, as to 
occupy rather too large a space in a work professing to be merely 
elementary ; but we should be compelled in a still greater degree to 
exceed the limits assigned to us, if we were to attempt to enter into 
the details of the very extraordinary progress that has taken place 
during the same period, in arts, sciences, and literature ; some changes, 
indeed, have occurred, and more been contemplated, in religion, laws, 
and government, but in regard to the former, almost all things have 
become new : we have new arts and new sciences ; and in literature, 
such an overflowing of books upon every subject that could possibly 
occupy or interest the mind of man, that the most diligent compiler of 
catalogues would fail in endeavouring barely to enumerate them. 

2. It is somewhat extraordinary, indeed, that this great and rapid 
advancement of knowledge has after all been confined to only a small 
portion of the globe. The great continent of Africa, though better 
known than in past times, has made no advances in civilization. Asia, 
though many parts have been diligently explored during the last centu- 
ry, and a large portion of it actually occupied by Europeans, remains, 
as to the natives, in its original state. The vast empire of China has 
made no progress at all. Japan has effectually shut the door against 
all improvement. South America, indeed, though labouring under 
difficulties unfriendly to the progress of knowledge, is yet reported to 
be making no inconsiderable advances, particularly in Mexico, where 
both the arts and sciences are cultivated with credit and effect. In 
North America, also, the arts and sciences and literature may certainly 
be said to be in a progressive state, but under circumstances of rather 
slow and partial improvement.* 

3. Civilized Europe is the only part of the world that can claim the 
credit of almost all that has been done towards the advancement of 
knowledge since the commencement of the eighteenth century, and 
only a few parts after all of civilized Europe itself. Turkey has stood 
still, as well as her Grecian dependencies, till very lately. Spain, 
Portugal, and even the greater part of Italy, liave laboured under dif- 
ficulties and restrictions exceedingly inimical to their advancement, 
and which have greatly arrested their progress in the career of letters 
and philosophy. The north and north-eastern parts of Europe have 
produced many learned men, have been diligently explored, and ma- 
terials at least collected for great improvements ; other parts are also 
upon the advance : but England, France, and Germany, are undoubt- 

[* The writer must be under a mistake. Is it not acknowledged through- 
out Europe, that the United States of North America are not only farther 
advanced, but faster advancing, in the discoveries of science, and that 
their progress in literature is more rapid, than any other nation of the new 
world ?] 



MODERN HISTORY. 3*)9 

edly the principal countries to which we must look for the most strik- 
ing progress in every branch of human knowledge. In these three 
countries, in particular, discoveries have now certainly been made , and 
principles established, which can never be lost again, and which must, 
as far as they may extend, be constantly operating to the lasting im- 
provement of the world at large. 

4. It would be quite unnecessary to go back to the origin, or former 
state, either of the arts or sciences, now known and cultivated in Eu- 
rope. It is pretty generally understood, that, comparatively with tta 
age of the world, they have been only very recently submitted to sucb 
processes as bid fair to bring them to the highest state of perfection 
One art has helped another, and new s^ences oeen brought to light, 
that have greatly promoted the advancement of those before under- 
stood and cultivated. Galvanism has assisted electricity j and gal- 
vanism and electricity together been exceedingly serviceable to 
chemistry ; chemistry to mineralogy, and so forth : new systems and 
arrangements, and new nomenclatures, have contributed greatly to 
render every step that has been taken more accurate and certain, and 
to place every object of attention or inquiry more exactly in the rank 
and order it should occupy in the general circle of arts and sciences : 
but the thing of most importanse of all, in regard to the improvements 
that have taken place since the beginning or middle of the eighteenth 
century, is. that every thing has been conducted exactly upon those 

f)rinciples, which the great lord Bacon so strongly recommended, and 
ias, therefore, been found conducive to all those great ends, the neg- 
lect of which, in his own and preceding ages, he so much deplored : 
every thing has had a tendency to augment the powers, dimimsh the 
pains, or increase the happiness of mankind. 

5. Amongst the sciences so cultivated and advanced, since the sev- 
enteenth century, as justly to be regarded as new, we may rank chem- 
istry, botany, electricity, galvanism, mineralogy, geology, and in many 
respects, geography : every one of these sciences has been placed on so 
very different a footing, by the recent manner of treating them, and by 
new discoveries, that it is better, perhaps, at once to consider them as 
new sciences, than to advert to former systems, founded on totally er- 
roneous principles, and which have been, on that account, very rea- 
sonably exploded. 

6. Chemistry, however, even in the course of the period before us, 
has undergone very essential changes ; it is now not only a very differ- 
ent science from the chemistry that prevailed antecedent to the eigh- 
teenth century ; but the eighteenth centuiy itself has witnessed a re- 
markable revolution in its leading principles : some, indeed, of the 
most important changes approach nearer to the nineteenth than the 
seventeenth century, if they do not actually belong to the former ; at 
all events, it was not till towards the close of the eighteenth century 
that chemical experiments had been pushed so far as to displace two 
of the elements of the old philosophy, and totally supersede the pre- 
vailing theory of heat, light, and combustion ; a theory wnich was 
itself not much more than half a century old. Stahl, the celebrated 
disciple of Becher, born in 1,660, but who lived to 1,734, has the credit 
of being the author of the phlogistic system, which began to be attack- 
ed late in the last century, and seems now to be totally exploded. 
Whether the rival theory will ultimately maintain its ground in all 
points, may, perhaps, appear still doubtful to some : the French claim 
to be the authors of the new theory ; but though the experiments they 
very ably conducted were highly conducive to the establishment of it, 



400 MODERN HISTORY. 

the way seems to have been more opened to thern by others than they 
are willing to acknowledge, particularly by English observers. The 
phlogistic system was a plausible theory in certain respects, but io 
others totally indefensible ; and, perhaps, a better proof of the utility 
of repeated experiments could not be produced, than that which as- 
certained, that, instead of the extrication of a particular substance by 
combustion, something was undoubtedly added to, or imbibed by, the 
combustible body, in order to the separation of its parts ; that, in fact, 
in the actual process of combustion, affinity produces a double decom- 
position, and that a certain portion of the atmosphere entering into 
union with the combustible body produces all those appear*, nces 
which, under the former sv«tem had been attributed to the ex- 
trication of an unknown principle of inflammability, denominated 
phlogiston. 

7. The very curious experiments, made to confirm and establish the 
latter system, have been of the greatest importance in regard to other 
matters, particularly to that branch of the new chemistry which has 
been denominated the pneumatic system. The discoveries in this line 
of experiment, which has the air lor its subject, exceed, perhaps, all 
others in importance and interest : the analysis of the common atmos- 
phere has opened to our view a series of physical operations constant- 
ly going on, the most wonderful and delicate that can possibly be con- 
ceived : the respiration of animals is of this description. The atmos 
phere is now known to be a most curious compound of two sorts ot 
air, or gases, (as they have been named of late,) the one capable of 
supporting life and flame, the other destructive of both : in combus- 
tion, calcination of metals, and respiration, the process is the same, — 
a decomposition of the atmosphere : the pure part iy imbibed, and the 
impure part left subject to further contamination, by what is given 
out by the combustible, calcining, or respiring bodies during the ope* 
ration ; for, as it was before said, the decomposition in all instances is 
a double one ; the proportion of the two parts of the atmosphere has 
been ascertained to be in a hundred, twenty-two of pure or vital, and 
seventy-eight of impure or azotic gas. 

8. The discovery of the vital air is acknowledged by M. Lavoisier 
to have been common to himself with two other eminent chemists, Dr. 
Priestly and the celebrated Scheele. Dr. Priestly discovered it in 
1,774, Scheele in 1,777, M. Lavoisier in 1,775 : the former seems un 
doubtedly to have the best claim to the discovery. M. Lavoisier, at 
first, called it " highly respirable air ;" afterwards, as entirely essen- 
tial to the support of life, " vital air :" Dr. Priestly, who lived and 
died an advocate for the phlogistic system, " dephlogis&cated air :" 
and Scheele called it " empyreal air." It at last obtained another 
name, from its being supposed to be the cause of acidity, viz. " oxy- 
gen gas." 

9. Who is justly to be accounted the father of the pneumatic cnem- 
istry, it would, perhaps, be hazardous to say : Dr. Black of Edinburgh 
has had the credit of being so, from his experiments on the carbonic 
acid. It has been claimed for Dr. Priestley, Scheele, and M. Lavoi 
sier : the discoveries in this line certainly constitute a grand era lr 
chemistry. The many various kinds of gases that have been now 
discovered ; the very curious experiments made to ascertain theii 
properties : the instruments invented to render such experiments cer* 
tain ; the new compounds that have been detected by their means,, 
and their operation and effects in almost eveiy branch of physics, if 
would far exceed our limits to describe but it is impossible not tc 



MODERN HISTORY. 401 

notice the extraordinary discovery of the decomposition of water, 
which belongs entirely to pneumatic chemistry. 

10. Till within less than half a century ago, water was esteemed to 
be so certainly an elementary principle, that but few ever dreamed of 
its being otherwise ; and it was almost by accident that it was at last 
found to be a compound. In the course of certain pneumatic experi- 
ments, it was ascertained by Mr. Cavendish, that water was produced 
by a combination of two particular gases : both analysis and synthesis 
were resorted to, to render this curious discovery more certain, and it 
was at length ascertained, not only that those two gases were constant- 
ly produced in certain proportions from the decomposition of water, 
but that water was as constantly the result of a judicious mixture of 
those two gases : the gases thus constituting the proper principles of 
water, were the vital and inflammable airs of the first chemical nomen- 
clature of modern days, better known now by the names of oxygen 
gas and hydrogen gas ; the latter evidently so called from its im- 
portance, as a constituent base or radical 01 water ; we owe the dis- 
covery of it to our countryman, Mr. Cavendish. The proportion be- 
tween the two gases in these curious experiments has been found to be 
eighty-five of oxygen to fifteen of hydrogen • both oxygen and hydro- 
gen being combustible, their combination for experimental purpose* 
is brought about by inflammation, through the means of the electric 
spark. 

11. Having given this short account of the leading discoveries in 
pneumatic chemistry ; discoveries which have opened to us totally 
new views, of certain physical operations of the first importance, and 
greatly extended our knowledge of chemical substances and their prop- 
erties, simple and compound, visible and invisible, confineable and 
unconfineable : we shall be compelled to be mucn more brief in what 
further relates to modern chemistry. 

12. Of late years almost all the substances in nature have been ex 
amined ; and probably almost all the combinations of them exhausted : 
new metals to a large amount, new earths, and new acids have been 
discovered ; the fixed alkalis decomposed, and their nature ascertain- 
ed ; the whole range of chemical affinities and attractions nicely ar- 
ranged and determined, as far as experiment can reach ; and many 
elastic aeriform fluids brought to light, distinguished from each other 
by their different bases, which were totally unknown before to natural 
philosophers, under the forms in which they are now obtained ; and 
which have been thought deserving of being formed into a fourth class 
or kingdom, amongst the productions of nature : the proper distinction 
of these elastic fluids, or gases, as they have been denominated, (after 
a term adopted by Vanhelmont, signifying a spirit or incoercible 
vapour,) being that of some base, saturated with the cause of heat or 
expansion, called in the new nomenclature caloric; by means of some 
of these gases, so combined with caloric, a power has been obtained 
of fusing the most refractory substances in nature. 

13. To render the nice and delicate experiments necessary in this 
new branch of chemical science more accurate, numerous instruments 
have been invented, of very curious construction ; such as the eudiom- 
eter, to measure the purity of any given portion of air ; the gazometer 
to measure the quantities, kc. of gases ; the calorimeter, for measures 
of heat ; to which we may add various descriptions of thertnome&ers 
and pyrometers. .particularly the differential thermometer, invented by 
Mr. Leslie, of Edinburgh, and its accompaniments ; the pyroscoj>e t 
or measure of radiant heat ; the photometer , to ascertain the intensity 

LI 2 51 



402 MODERN HISTORY 

of light ; very curious and delicate balances, some that are said to bfe 
capable of ascertaining a weight down to the seven millionth part 
deserve to be mentioned, as extraordinary instances of skilful work- 
manship ; many different sorts of hygrometers also have been con- 
structed, particularly one by the same ingenious experimentalist 
already mentioned, Mr. Leslie, calculated to render more correct the 
examination of all processes dependant upon evaporation; but il 
would be endless to attempt to describe the many instruments and con- 
trivances rendered necessary by the extreme delicacy and minuteness 
of modern chemical and pneumato-cheniical experiments; it is suffi- 
cient to state, in a history of the progress of arts and sciences, than 
in all instances, invention appears to have kept pace with experiment ; 
and that the world has been almost as much enriched by the new-in- 
vented means of discovery, as by the discoveries to which they have 
conduced ; while the skill and judgment requisite to construct the 
expensive and complicated instruments indispensably necessary for 
ascertaining the analysis and synthesis of bodies, with such exquisite 
precision, as to quantity and proportion, have conspired greatly to 
advance the several arts connected with such machinery, as well as to 
quicken the intelligence and ingenuity of the artists themselves ; in 
this line, perhaps, nobody has acquired greater celebrity than the late 
Mr. Ramsden, the maker of the balaace of the Royal Society, whose 
extraordinary powers have been alluded to above. 

14. Among those who have principally distinguished themselves in 
the improvement and advancement of chemical science, since the 
commencement of the eighteenth century, we may justly mention the 
names of Stahl, Fourcroy, Macquer, Lavoisier, Guytonmorveau, 
Berthollet, Klaproth, Vauquelin, Chaptal, Gay-Lussac, Kiiwan, Ten- 
nant, Wollaston, Priestley, Cavendish, Black, Irwine, Crawford* 
Leslie, Hall, Thompson, Brande, and Davy. To the last of whom, 
our illustrious countryman, we stand indebted for some of the most 
remarkable discoveries, and most laborious analyses of compound 
substances, which have taken place under the new system ; nor has 
he been deficient in applying his scientific attainments to practical 
purposes, in his elements of chemical agriculture, and above all, the 
safety-lamp, whereby he may possibly, in combating the fatal effects 
of the fire damp in coal mines, have contributed to preserve the lives 
of thousands and thousands of his fellow creatures ; this discovery 
was the fruit of many most laborious, difficult, and even dangerous ex- 
periments. 

15. When we consider the many uses of chemistry, and the im- 
mense advantages to be derived from eveiy improvement of it in a 
variety of manufactures, in medicine, in metallurgy, in the arts of 
dying, painting, brewing, distilling, tanning, making glass, enamels, 
porcelain, and many others, we may easily conceive that the progress 
and advancement of this one branch of science alone, during the last 
and present century, must have contributed largely to the improve- 
ment of many things, on which all the comforts and conveniences, the 
happiness, the security, the well-being, the prosperity, and even the 
lives of men, depend. 



BOTANY. 

I. Botany is another of the sciences, which, from the changes 
it has undergone, and the great progress it has made since the 



MODERN HISTORY. 403 

commencement of the eighteenth century, may justly be regarded as 
new, 

2. Already were the names of Ray, Rivinus, and Tournefort, well 
known to the lovers of this interesting study, forming as it were a new 
era in the history of botany, and imparting a lustre to the close of the 
seventeenth century, for which it will ever be memorable. Their at- 
tempts at arrangement may be justly considered as the commencement 
of a career which was destined to acquire its full degree of develope- 
ment during the eighteenth century, under the happy auspices of toe 
most celebrated botanist the world ever saw ; the great and illustrious 
Linnaeus. 

3. This extraordinary man was born at Rashult, in the province of 
Smaland, in Sweden, on the 24th of May, 1,707, and before he was 
twenty-one years of age, had made himself so thoroughly acquainted 
with the study of plants, as well as with the merits and defects of his 
predecessors in that line, as to conceive the idea of remodelling the 
whole fabric of systematic botany, and of placing it on a new founda- 
tion, namely, the sexuality of vegetables. This bold and enterprising 
undertaking he not only projected, but accomplished with a rapidity 
and success that excited the wonder and astonishment both of his 
friends and enemies. 

4. His first work was published in 1,730, being a brief exposition of 
the new principle on which his system was to he founded ; and the 
method may be said to have been completed in 1,737, when he pub- 
lished his Genera Plantarum, which contained a description and ar- 
rangement of nearly one thousand genera, comprising upwards of 
eight thousand species, and constituting what has been since known by 
the name of the sexual system. 

5. At first it was either opposed as a fanciful innovation, or received 
with doubt and distrust ; but its fame soon began to spread, and tc 
bear down before it all opposition, till it ultimately met with the 
almost universal reception of botanists in every country in Europe. 

6. In 1,742, Linnaeus was chosen professor of botany at Upsal, and 
in 1,753 he published his Species Plantarum. His authority was now 
supreme, and the impulse he communicated to the study of vegetables 
unprecedented in the annals of botany ; hence the various voyages 
that were undertaken by his immediate disciples, Kalm, Laepling, 
Hasselquist, and others, or which have been since undertaken by their 
successors, aided by the munificence of princes, or the zeal of private 
individuals, as well as the various societies that were sooner or later 
instituted, with a view to the advancement of botanical knowledge ; 
amongst which the Linnaean society of London, founded in 1,788, stands 
pre-eminent, under the presidency of sir James Edward Smith, one 
of the most distinguished of the followers of Linnaeus, and the pos- 
sessor of his herbarium, library, and manuscripts. 

7. The acquisitions thus made to the mass of botanical knowledge, 
are altogether astonishing. Botanists are now said to be acquainted 
with upwards of forty thousand species of plants ; and still there are 
regions of the earth unexplored, and flowers without a name, (" et sunt 
sine nomine jlores.") 

8. We cannot, however, refuse to acknowledge that botany has also 
derived the most important advantages from such cultivators of the 
science as cannot be ranked amongst the disciples of Linnaeus, though 
they have equally contributed to the advancement of the knowledge of 
plants, at least in the department of the study of their natural affini- 
ties ; the grand and ultimate end of botany, which Linnaeus himself 



404 MODERN HISTORY. 

knew well how to appreciate, and even to improve, as may be seen in 
his prelections published by Giseke, and in his Fragments of a Natu- 
ral Method. But it was left for the illustrious Jussieu, the most ac- 
complished botanist of the present age, to give to that method the 
comparative perfection which it has actually obtained, and to erect 
the noble superstructure of his Genera Plantarum ; a work exhibiting 
the most philosophical arrangement of plants, as well as the most 
complete view of their natural affinities, that was ever presented to 
the contemplation of man. 

9. This work was published at Paris in 1,789, and the natural 
method of Jussieu, which may be regarded as having at all times 
stood in opposition to the artificial method of Linnaeus, seems now to 
be advancing to a more direct rivalship than ever. Even in the 
works of such botanists as profess to be the disciples of Linnaeus, there 
seems to be a leaning to the method of Jussieu ; but whether the 
natural method of the latter will be suffered ultimately to prevail, or 
the artificial method of the former, time only can show. 

10. Great, however, as the progress of systematic botany has un- 
doubtedly been, during the course of the last and beginning of the 
present century, the progress of physiological botany has perhaps 
been still greater. In proof of this, it will be sufficient to mention the 
names of Hales, Bonnet, Du Hamel, Hedwig, Spallanzani, Gaertner, 
Knight, Keith, and Mirbel ; each of whom has distinguished himself 
in the field of phytological investigation, and eminently contributed to 
Ihe advancement of the science. Above all, we must not fail to men- 
lion the name of Priestley, as being the first who introduced into the 
study of phytology the aid of pneumatic chemistry, which, under the 
nappy auspices of Ingenhouz, Senebier, Saussure, Ellis, and Davy, 
and lastly of Gay-Lussac and Kenard, has done more to elucidate the 
phenomena of vegetation, than all other means of investigation, and 
has furnished as the foundation of the physiology of plants a body of 
the most curious and undoubted facts. 

11. Before we dismiss this part of our subject, it is not unfit that we 
should notice the extraordinary progress that has been made at the 
same time in distinct branches of the science, as well as in the appli- 
cation of the arts of drawing, engraving, and colouring, for the pur- 
poses of illustration, and for exhibiting to the eye, at all times, in al 
places, and at all seasons, the beautiful and interesting productions of 
the vegetable kingdom, in such perfection, as, in seme degree, to su- 
persede the necessity of living specimens ; sometimes so rare and in- 
accessible as to be out of the reach of the most scientific. There is 
no branch of knowledge which has furnished more splendid and elabo- 
rate works of this nature, than that of botany, or in which the arts have 
been carried to a greater degree of perfection and delicacy ; and as a 
study so elegant and agreeable cannot well be rendered too general, 
it is pleasing to observe, that through the improvements that have thus 
taken place, and the facilities afforded to such publications, not a 
month passes in this kingdom without large additions being made to 
the general stock of botanical knowledge, in works of singular beauty 
and correctness ; though far from costly, considering the pains bestow- 
ed upon them. 

12. The lovers of botany stand greatly indebted also, to those 
learned persons who have made it their particular business to collect, 
examine, and describe the plants of countries and districts, and to 
supply them with distinct Florcz, both foreign and domestic, as the 
Flora Britannica of Smith, the Flora Anglica of Hudson, the Flora 



MODERN HISTORY. 40b 

Scotica of Lightfoot, the Flora Cantabrigiensis of Relhan, the Flora 
Oxoniensis of Sibthorpe, the Flora Londinensis of Curtis, the Flora 
Graeca, the Flora Peruviana, the Flora Danica, the Flore Francoise, 
and others much too numerous to mention ; in the same class may be 
reckoned those works which are still further confined to the descrip- 
tion or illustration of particular genera of plants, as in our own country, 
the Carices, by Goodenough ; the Grasses, by Stillingfleet ; the 
Menthae Britannicae, by Sole ; the Pines, by Lambert ; the Fuci, by 
Turner ; and various others. 



ELECTRICITY. 

1. Though the property of excitation existing in amber, (elektron,) 
appears to have been known to Thales six hundred, and to Theophras- 
tus three hundred years before Christ, yet electricity (which takes its 
name from this circumstance) and galvanism, as it is still called, may 
decidedly be regarded as sciences which have sprung up during the 
period to which our present inquiries belong. It was not, indeed, till 
towards the middle of the eighteenth century that experiments in 
electricity were pursued with any degree of ardour, success, or ad- 
vantage. Mr. Hawksbee wrote learnedly upon the subject in 1,709, 
but it was not till twenty years afterwards that Mr. Grey and M. dii 
Faye at Paris, engaged m some experiments which contributed to 
throw light upon the subject. Mr. Grey, who resumed his experi- 
ments in 1,734, saw enough to lead him to suppose that the electric 
fluid and lightning were the same, which was not, however, effectually 
proved till the year 1,752, when the celebrated Dr. Franklin, of 
America, with great ingenuity, and no small degree of courage, ascer- 
tained the fact by decisive experiments ; a discovery which he soon 
applied to practical purposes, by the invention of metallic conductors 
for the security oi buildings, ships, &c, during storms. 

2. As experiments could not be profitably undertaken till a suitable 
apparatus was provided, it is equally evident, that the improvement 
oi such apparatus must greatly have depended on the progress of the 
science. The Leyden phial for the accumulation of the electrical 
power in glass, was invented about 1,745, and the general apparatus 

Gradually improved by Van Marum, Cunaeus, Dr. Nooth, Mr. Nairne, 
)r. Priestley, Messrs. Read, Lane, and Adams. To professor Volta, 
of Como, we stand indebted for two very useful and important electri- 
cal instruments, the electrophorus, and condenser of electricity. Many 
sorts of electrometers for measuring the quantity and quality of elec- 
tricity in an electrified body, have also been invented. 

3. In 1,747 electricity began to be used for medical purposes, and 
was supposed to be of efficacy in cases of rheumatism, deafness, palsy, 
scrofula, cancers, abscesses, gout, &c. ; but the progress of medical 
electricity has not been great, while the want of an apparatus, and the 
knowledge and skill requisite to apply it properly, must always pie- 
vent its becoming any very common remedy. 

4. Galvanism, which may be said to have been engrafted on elec- 
tricity in 1,791, was the discovery of the celebrated Galvani of 
Bologna ; it has been called animal electricity ; his first experiments 
having been macte on animals, and tending manifestly to prove the 
identity of the nervous and electric fluids, though this was for some 
time doubted. M. Galvani discovered that, without any artificial 
electricity, and by merely presenting some conducting substance to 



406 MODERN HISTORY 

different parts of the nerves or muscles of a dissected frog, violent 
motions were produced, exactly similar to those which were excited 
by a discharge of the electrical machine. 

5. The discovery of M. Galvani has since led to very important 
ends, through the great care and attention of M. Volta, who, improv- 
ing upon his discovery of the power of conductors, has been enabled 
to supply the philosophical world with an instrument of very extraor- 
dinary powers, especially for purposes of chemical decomposition. 
At first M. Volta was led to suppose that it required only a set of dif- 
ferent conductors, two metals and a fluid, to collect and distribute the 
electrical matter ; he considered that, upon these principles, he bad 
produced an artificial imitation of the electrical powers exhibited by 
the torpedo, the gymnotus, silurus, and tetrodon electricus ; but further 
discoveries demonstrated that there was a chemical agency going for- 
ward all the time, and that much depended on the action of the fluids 
on the metals, which are all naturally excellent conductors, but become 
non-conductors when oxydated, some being more easily oxydated than 
others. The voltaic pile is a simple galvanic combination ; a series 
of them forms a battery. The most perfect galvanic combination is 
held to consist in such an arrangement of metals, exposed to the action 
of an oxydating fluid, as are liable to very different changes ; the 
greatest and the least. In every simple galvanic combination, water 
is decomposed, the oxygen entering into union with the metal, and the 
hydrogen being evolved. 

6. Since this discovery, many have engaged in electro-chemical re- 
searches, of the utmost importance, particularly our own countryman, 
sir Humphrey Davy. His experiments on the alkalis and earths, and 
discovery of their metallic nature, being in themselves sufficient to 
show how wide a range of inquiry is opened to the experimentalist, 
by this powerful agent ; it being reasonable to suppose, that there is 
scarcely any substance in nature, either above or below the surface of 
the earth, that is not subject, more or less, to the chemical agencies 
of electricity. Heretofore the observations of the philosopher were 
chiefly, if not entirely, confined to those sudden and violent changes 
which take place through any powerful concentration of the electric 
fluid. These new discoveries seem to afford him a fair chance and 
opportunity of tracing some at least of those manifold changes which 
may be brought about in a more quiet, tranquil, and insensible man- 
ner^ and which, in all probability, are incessantly operating effects, 
hitherto little known and little suspected. It is obvious that medicine, 
chemistry, physiology, mineralogy, and geology, may all be greatly 
assisted by a more perfect knowledge of such curious and hitherto 
hidden processes of nature Before the galvanic method of exciting 
electricity had been discovered, many very curious experiments had 
been made ; to prove the influence of electricity on tne atmosphere, 
magnetism, vegetation, muscular motion ; in earthquakes, volcanoes, 
and other natural appearances and operations ; all of which are likely 
to become better known, and further illustrated, by the application of 
the electro-chemical apparatus, which, since its first invention, has been 
already greatly improved. It may not be amiss to observe, that meteo- 
rology, as a particular branch of knowledge, has been greasy aided 
by all the improvements spoken of above in chemistry and electricity, 
and in the invention of many instruments, very simple, but chiefly tc 
be referred to the eighteenth century ; as the barometer, the thermom- 
eter, the hydrometer, the pluviameter, or rain-gauge, the anemometer, 
and electrometer already mentioned. Amongst the most eminent of 



MODERN HISTORY. 4(H 

Uiose who have applied themselves to this study, we may reckon 
Messrs. Bouguer, Saussure, De Luc, Gay-Lussac, Van-Marum, Fer- 
guson, Cavallo, &c. ; Drs. Franklin, Blagden, and Priestley ; Messrs, 
Canton and Beccaria. 



MINERALOGY AND GEOLOGY. 

1. Mineralogy and geology are reasonably to be regarded as new 
sciences since the close of the seventeenth century, having been cul- 
tivated from that time in a manner totally new, and greatly advanced 
by the progress made in other sciences, and the improvement of many 
.arts. They are both, however, still so much in their infancy, that a 
very brief account of what has taken place during the last and. present 
century is the utmost that we can attempt. 

2. It was not till towards the middle of the last century, that the 
modern scientific arrangements of minerals began to occupy the atten- 
tion of naturalists. That indefatigable observer, Linnaeus, did not 
overlook this branch of natural history, but introduced into the twelfth 
edition of his " Systema Naturae," published in 1,768, a systematic 
view of " The Kegnum Lapideum," which he divided into three 
classes, petrce, minerce, and fossilice, many orders, and fifty-four gene- 
ra. In 1,793, Gmelin republished the " Systema Naturae" of Lin- 
naeus, with alterations and improvements. 

3. Linnaeus did not take the lead in such arrangements : in his own 
work he notices the preceding systems of Bromelius, who published 
in 1,730 • Wallerius, in 1,747 ; Woltersdorf, in 1,748 ; Curtheuser, in 
1.775 : Justi, in 1,757 ; Cronstedt, in 1,758 ; and Vogel, in 1,762, 
Linnaeus, however, has the credit of having first reduced the science 
of mineralogy into classes and orders, and Wallerius and himself un- 
dertook the arduous and hazardous task of fixing the specific characters 
of minerals. Wallerius's second system appeared in 1 ,772. In 1 ,781 , 
Veltheim published his system at Brunswick, and in 1,782, Berga- 
man's made its first appearance at Leipsic. 

4. Before this time the celebrated Werner, professor of mineralogy 
at Freyburg, in Saxony, had published a treatise on the classification 
of minerals, according to their external characters, which was more 

ully illustrated in his nates to a translation of Cronstedt, which ap- 
peared in 1,780. Werner has obtained a name amongst mineralogists 
and geologists, which stands deservedly high ; though he seems only 
to have prepared the way for the observations and experiments of 
others, by an accumulation and description of facts and appearances, 
extremely curious and valuable. The fundamental principle in Wer- 
ner's mineralogical arrangement, is the natural affinity of fossils, of 
which he enumerates three kinds : the chemical, the oryctognostical, 
and the geognostic. Mr. Kirwin first introduced the Wemerian sys^ 
tem into Britain, in his treatise on mineralogy, 1,784. 

5. In 1,773, the study of the regular or crystalline forms of minerals 
seemed to give a new turn to mineralogy. The first work of eminence 
in this line was the Crystallographie of the celebrated Rome de P Isle, 
which was made the basis of the system of Hauy, published in 1,801 
All mineral bodies are supposed by this system to be reducible by 
mechanical division to an integrant molecule. From the form and 
component parts, it has been proposed to deduce the specific charac- 
ters The forms of the integrant molecule are found to be three ; the 
tetranedron, the triangular prism, and the parallelapiped. Much 



408 MODERN HISTORY. 

attention has been paid to this system, and it must be acknowledged 
that if the tes f s proposed were easily to be applied, and chemistry 
had proceeded so far as thoroughly to enable us to distinguish between 
the accidental and essential ingredients of minerals, as lias been done 
in some remarkable instances with much effect, more direct means of 
distinguishing minerals could scarcely be devised : but as things stand 
at present, there seems to be too much geometry and chemistry ne- 
cessary to render such a system generally useful. In 1,808, however. 
M. Chevenix, in the Annales de Chymie, gave great support to the 
system of Hauy, to the disparagement of that of Werner, to whom, 
nevertheless, he is careful to give due praise. Crystallization wil 
iong remain, probably, a subject of most curious research and inquiry 
among geologists as well as mineralogists ; the appearances of it in 
primitive rocks, leading immediately to the grand question concerning 
the operations of fire and water, which have divided the cultivators of 
this branch of study into the two parties of Platonists, who contend for 
the igneous origin of those rocks, and the JVeptunists, who refer them to 
an aqueous origin ; of the latter of which, was the celebrated Werner. 

6. Many other systems, more or less connected with Werner's, have 
been made public, as Brochart's, Schmeisser's, 1,795 ; Babington's, 
1,796 ; Brogniart's, (a very useful and valuable one,) Kidd's, 1,809 ; 
Clarke's, 1,811 ; one by Mr. Arthur Aikin ; and, lastly, that of Ber- 
zelius, a Swedish chemist, who has lately attempted to establish a 
pure scientific system of mineralogy, oy the application of the electro- 
chemical theory and the chemical proportions : as this system is 
closely connected with the latest discoveries and improvements that 
have been made in chemistry and electricity, we shall here close our 
remarks on mineralogy, as a science by no means perfected, but open 
to further experiments and observations, though very materially ad- 
vanced since the close of the seventeenth century 

7. Geology has arisen out of mineralogy ; and though no new 
science as to name, is entirely so according to the principles upon 
which it is now conducted. Werner was for giving a new name at 
once to the new science, which was a judicious step to take, though it 
has not been generally adopted ; he called it Geognosie : it is fit, in- 
deed, that it should be distinguished from the geology of old, which 
only engendered a parcel of fanciful theories of the earth, unfounded 
on facts. How the globe was formed, is a very different inquiry from 
that of " what has happened to it since it was formed :" modern 
geology is chiefly conversant with the latter ; to examine the interior 
of the earth, as far as it can be examined, in order to understand the 
course of the revolutions and changes that have taken place, and of 
which we perceive the most manifest proofs already very extraordi- 
nary circumstances have been discovered, indicative of successive 
changes, both before and after any organic beings existed, and there- 
fore both before as well as after the globe became strictly habitable; 
among the most curious effects plainly to be traced, may be reckoned 
the extensive operations of fire and water, the extinction of many 
6pecies of vegetables and animals, and the very extraordinary preser- 
vation of some of the latter, bespeaking a state of congelation, at the 
moment of the catastrophe by which they appear to have been over- 
whelmed ; remains of animals in places where they no longer exists 
and the extraordinary absence of human reliquiae. The science of 
comparative anatomy has been of great use in these researches, in 
which nobody has distinguished himself so much as M. Cuvier, secre- 
tary of the French Institute. 



MODERN HISTORY. 409 

3. Many geological societies are forming, or have been already 
formed, in different parts of Europe and in America, and professor- 
ships founded in our universities ; but it will be long, perhaps, before 
the several observations and discoveries making in all parts of the 
world, can be so compared, classed, and methodized, as to bring out 
such results as may be admitted for certain and indisputable truths, in 
regard to the history of the earth and of man. In the mean while, we 
should consider that geologists have always a field to work in, abound- 
ing in materials so applicable to every useful art as to promise con- 
tinual accessions of knowledge, not merely scientific, but of real 
practical utility. 

We ought not, perhaps, to dismiss this part of our subject, without 
noticing the very curious geological map of England, published by 
our countryman, Mr. Smith, in 1,815, a work of great merit and 
originality. 

GEOGRAPHY. 

1 We have mentioned geography, also, as among those sciences 
which may be regarded as almost new, not only because it is since the 
middle of the last century that Ave have acquired a more correct knowl- 
edge of the figure of the earth, but from the extraordinary manner in 
which the whole terraqueous globe has been explored of late, and the 
additions consequently made to our former knowledge of its parts: 
the discoveries that have taken place since the close of the seventeenth 
centui f, have, according to the French geographers, presented to us 
two new quarters of the world, and which have been denominated 
Australasia and Polynesia. The following account may serve to ex- 
plain t lese additions to modern geography : 

2. The former is held to contain, 1. New Holland, and all the 
islands betwee-n twenty degrees west, and between twenty and thirty 
degree. \ east of it. 2. New Guinea and the islands adjacent. 3. New 
Britain, New Ireland, and the Solomon Isles. 4. New Caledonia and 
the Neu Hebrides. 5. New Zealand. 6. Van Dieman's Land, which 
is separated from New Holland by Basse's strait or channel, and is 
about tl'irty leagues wide. 

3. The division called Polynesia, consists of, 1. The Pelew Islands 
2. The Ladrone or Marian Islands. 3. The Carolines. 4. The 
Sandwich Islands. 5. The Marquesas, which are very numerous. 
6. The Society Islands, about sixty or seventy in number. 7. The 
Friendly Islands. 8. The Navigators' Islands. The largest island 
in this division is Owhyhee, one of the Sandwich Islands, and the 
place where the celebrated circumnavigator, Cook, lost his life. 

4. The voyages and travels conducive to these discoveries are too 
generally known to be much dwelt upon in such a work as the present. 
It will be sufficient merely to mention the names of those who, since 
the years 1,735 and 1,736, (when the Spanish and French mathemati- 
cians undertook their celebrated missions to measure a degree of the 
meridian under the pole and at the equator,) have been employed by 
the different powers of Europe on voyages of discovery. 

5. Of the English we may enumerate : 

Byron, 1,754—1,766. Mr. Harrison's time-piece applied to the 
discovery of the longitude. 

Wallisand Carteret, 1,766. Sailed together, but soon separated; 
Otaheite and other islands discovered. 

M m 52 



410 MODERN HISTOR1. 

Cook, three voyages : — 

First voyage, 1,768 — 1,771. The transit of Venus observed at 
blatavai, in Otaheite, June, 1,769. New Holland, and New Zealand 
explored. 

Second voyage, 1,772 — 1,775, in search of a southern continent. 

Third voyage, 1,776 — 1,780, to discover a northern passage ; fatal 
to captain Cook, who was killed at Owhyhee. 

Portloch and Dixon, 1,785 — 1,788 ; principally to establish the fur 
trade, at Nootka Sound. 

Vancouver, 1,790 — 1,795, to explore the northern passage. Unsue- 
sessful. 

Phipps, (lord Mulgrave,) north pole, 1.773, 

Lord Macartney, China, 1,792. 

Lord Amherst, ditto. 1,816, 1,817. 

Of the French we may reckon, 

Bougainville, 1,766—1,768. 

La Peyrouse, 1,785 — 1,788, supposed to have perished. 

D'Entricasteux, in search of La Peyrouse. 

Marchand, 1,790— 1,792. 

The Spaniards appear to have employed Malaspina, an Italian, 
1*790, to explore distant seas and countries; but his voyage was not 
published. These were all of them voyages, not merely devoted to 
geographical discoveries, but in which competent persons, in almost 
every branch of science, were concerned, to take account of whatever 
should offer itself to their notice, or be likely to contribute, in any 
manner whatsoever, to the general advancement of human knowledge ; 
astronomy, botany, zoology, meteorology, physiology, mineralogy, 
and geology. Trade and commerce, navigation and the arts, were 
constantly in the way of receiving illustration or improvement, during 
these bold attempts to advance the geography of the world, and solve 
the difficulties which still seemed to hang about that interesting and 
important science. The names of Banks, Solander, Green, Sparrman, 
Forster, and Anderson, will descend to the remotest posterity, with 
that of Cook. 

6. War often, indeed, interrupted these pursuits, but the eighteenth 
century has the credit of affording the following strong marks of the 
progress of civilization and liberal ideas. It was during a continental 
war, that a combination of learned and scientific persons, English, 
French, Russians, Danes, and Swedes, in the year 1,761, laying aside 
their animosities, undertook the arduous task of observing, for astro- 
nomical and geographical purposes, a transit of Venus over the sun. 
It was in the midst of war, that France, in a very public and formal 
manner, suspended all hostilities that could in any manner affect the 
progress or safe return of our English navigator, Cook ; and both the 
French and English, in the course of their voyages of discovery, are 
known to have evinced a spirit of philanthropy and humanity very 
opposite to what had passed on such occasions in former ages. The 
improvement of every barbarous and savage people they might visit, 
wai, among the first thoughts of those who were engaged in these new 
adventures. Some remarkable directions to this effect, given by 
Louis XVI. himself to La Peyrouse, will for ever do honour to the 
memory of that benign but ill-fated monarch. The English circum- 
navigators were not less attentive to these things, but continually sought 
the amelioration of the savage condition of the people they visited : 
too often, however, quite in vain, or without any lasting effect. 

7. It would be utterly out of our power to enter into any details of 



MODERN HISTORY. 411 

(he numerous researches that have been made in all parts of the globe, 
since the spirit of discovery was first excited, which has so remarkably 
distinguished the period of which we are treating. In the north and 
south, east and west, of both hemispheres, almost every region has 
been explored, and every information obtained that can throw light on 
the history either of the earth or of man. The two peninsulas o<" 
India, Persia, Arabia, Egypt, and Abyssinia, the northern and the 
southern, and, in some instances, the interior parts of Africa ; Syria. 
Greece, and Turkey ; Norway, Lapland, Siberia, and even the wilds 
of Tartary and Kamschatka ; New Spain ; the back settlements of 
North America, and North America itself; Iceland, Greenland, &.c, 
have all been visited by persons of science and learning, and are almost 
as well known now, as the most frequented and civilized parts of Eu- 
rope ; all that can be ascertained of their history ; all that the re- 
mains of antiquity could unfold to the eye of curiosity ; all the animals, 
plants, minerals, they produce : have been so amply examined, de- 
scribed, classed, and methodized, that it may reasonably be supposed, 
that in very many instances, all that can be known is known. Among 
the travels enumerated, the scholar, in particular, has been in no or- 
dinary degree gratified by the visits that have been recently paid to 
modern Greece, and by the able, classical, and scientific descriptions 
which have been given of that very interesting portion of the conti- 
nent, by lord Byron, Mr. Hobhouse, major Leake, Dr. Holland, sir 
William Drummond, Dr. Clark, lord Aberdeen, sir William Gell, and 
others of our own countrymen ; and by M. Pouqueville, who having 
accompanied Buonaparte to Egypt, at the close of the last century 
was among the first to explore those celebrated regions. 

8. The new means of inquiry and investigation, have so kept pac 
with the wide field lately opened to the world, that even individual! 
have been found competent to bring home with them from the most 
remote countries, ample mformation upon all the great points that can 
possibly interest the curiosity of man ; a greater instance of this, could 
not, perhaps, be produced, than in the case of a living traveller and 
author, the celebrated M. Humboldt, of Prussia, whose multifarious 
researches, at a very early age, in almost all parts of the globe, have 
added more to the general stock of knowledge in the compass of a very 
few years, than could have been attained by ages of inquiry in times 
at all distant. In speaking of this very celebrated traveller, whose 
accounts of Spanish America in particular have lately excited so much 
attention, it is fit also to notice the removal of man} 7 restraints and im- 
pediments in the way of such researches, through the more liberal 
policy of the mother country ; so far from expressing, as would have 
been the case in former times, any jealousy of such a visit to her colo- 
nies, M. Humboldt obtained the express approbation and concurrence 
of the Spanish court. The removal of the court of Portugal to the 
Brazils in the year 1,807, has also proved favourable in no small de- 
gree to the prosecution of such inquiries ; the king having, with con- 
siderable liberality, patronised such undertakings. 

9. The sovereigns of Russia, from the time of Peter the great, 
through a natural desire of acquiring a correct knowledge of their very 
extended dominions, buried, at the close of the seventeenth century, 
in profound ignorance and obscurity, were careful to employ proper 
persons to make such discoveries, who so ably discharged their com- 
missions, that before the end of the eighteenth century, a veiy cele- 
brated German professor declared that they had amassed such a quan- 
tity of materials, entirely new, for the history of the three kingdoms 



412 MODERN HISTORY. 

of nature, for the theory of the earth, for rural economy, and for an 
infinity of other objects relative to the arts and sciences, as would em- 
ploy many learned men for several years, in their proper arrangement 
and classification. The names of Beering and Spangberg, rallas, 
GmeLin, Muller, Chappe D'Auteroche, Georgi, Lepechin, are well 
known, as among those who have most distinguished themselves in 
these northern and north-eastern expeditions. Among the improve- 
ments connected with the science of geography, and its progress, we 
should be glad if we could do justice to the very learned and eminent 
persons who have, in a manner unknown before, devoted their time to 
the more correct delineation of the face of the globe, in the construc- 
tion of maps and charts, which seem to be advancing rapidly to the 
highest degree of perfection. M. d'Anville, whose labours in this 
way are so well known, may be justly considered perhaps as having 
given the first stimulus in this line of study, to the geographers ol 
modern times. 

10. As the science of astronomy is in many instances connected with 
geography, we may here notice the changes that have taken place in 
regard to the former, during the last and present centuries ; which, 
however, being only in the way of addition upon the established prin- 
ciples of the Copernican and Newtonian systems, are not such as can 
be said to have altered the character of the science itself ; and, indeed, 
the additions that have been made are very easily enumerated, though 
they must have cost much pains, and are the results of very curious 
observations and intricate calculations, on the part of those to whom 
we stand indebted for them. 

11. We have added five planets to those formerly known as belong 
ing to our solar system. The Georgium Sidus, or Uranus, discovered 

y the celebrated sir W. Herschel, 1,781, and its satellites, 1,787 , 
Ceres, by M. Piazzi, at Palermo, 1,801 ; Pallas, by Dr. Olbers, at 
Bremen, 1,802; Juno, by M. Harding of Lilienthal, in 1,804 ; and 
Vesta, by Dr. Olbers, 1,807. To the former of these celebrated ob- 
servers Ave owe a most enlarged knowledge of the celestial regions, 
Darticularly of the nebulous parts, from the application of his new 

elescopes of most extraordinary powers, which nave enabled us to 
ascertain that the milky-way, and other similar appearances in the 
neavens, are a congeries of fixed stars, in strata, prodigiously numer- 
ous, and exhibiting very curious phenomena. Of the immense amount 
of these stars, which may still have beyond them an unfathomable and 
anexplorable abyss of the same kind, we may form some conjecture 
from the following statement of sir William himself, who found by his 
gauges, in the year 1,792, that in the small space of forty-one minutes, 
no less than 238,000 stars, in the via lactea, had passed through the 
field of view in his telescope. Sir William places our own system in 
the via lactea. He has discovered, besides many new stars, double 
and triple stars, and what he calls changing stars. 

12. We have learned to correct our ideas concerning the substance 
of the body of the sun, heretofore considered as entirely of an igneous 
nature. Though its rays contribute largely to the production of heat 
on the earth's surface, many very obvious appearances ought sooner 
to have convinced us of what now seems clearly to be understood, that 
the sun is not a body of fire. 

13. The science of astronomy has been much promoted during the 
time of which we have been treating, by the improvement or invention 
of many curious and necessary instruments, and the building and 
establishment of regular observatories ; and practical astronomy has 



MODERN HISTORY. 413 

been carried to a very high pitch, by the talents and ingenuity of many 
very eminent persons in France, Britain, Germany, Italy, &c. ; as M. 
Clairault, d'Alembert, De la Caille, La Place, La Grange, Bailly, De 
la Lande, &c. ; Bradley, Maskelyn, Herschel, Hutton, Robison, 
Ferguson, Vince, &c. ; Euler, Mayer, Boda, Bianchim, Boscovich, 
Frisi, Piozzi, &c. 

14. We have spoken elsewhere of the travels, expressly undertaken 
in 1 753, to measure in the northern and soifthern parts of the world, a 
degree of the meridian, by which the figure of the earth was ascertain- 
ed to be an oblate spheroid, according to the conjectures of sir Isaac 
Newton, and contrary to the assertions of the Cassinis and Bernouilli, 
who had for some time insisted that the polar diameter was longer 
than the equatorial : all the experiments seemed to concur m proving 
the reverse. The steps that were taken, m the years 1,761 and 1,769, 
to determine the parallax of the sun, by observing the transit of Venus, 
afford another strong proof of the extraordinary zeal and resolution 
with which science was cultivated during the period of which we have 
been treating. On the recommendation of Dr. Halley, who had ob- 
served a transit of Mercury at St. Helena, but who did not expect to 
live to see a transit of Venus, and who in fact died in 1,742, mathema- 
ticians and astronomers were sent out in the years before mentioned, 
both from France and England. _ . 

15. Among the modern inventions appertaining to astronomy, be- 
sides the instruments absolutely necessary to correct observation, we 
may reckon those curious and elegant machines, exhibiting the motions 
and phenomena of our solar system and its several parts ; our orreries 
planetariums, tellurians, lunariums, &c, all of which may be consider , 
ed as extremely interesting and ingenious contrivances. 



1 It would be useless to attempt to give any circumstantial account 
of the progress that has been made in other sciences, during the period 
of which we have been treating, and vain to seek, by a mere enume- 
ration of names, to do justice to the many eminent and illustrious per 
sens who have distinguished themselves in various parts of the world, 
in every branch of learning, useful and ornamental, since the com- 
mencement of the eighteenth century. The numerous biographical 
works chronological charts, critical and philosophical journals, which 
have from time to time been published during this period, may supply 
information much more full and copious than would be at all consistent 
with the limits of this work, already extended beyond their original 
design As however, the surprising burst of intellect, investigation, 
and enterprise which has so marked and distinguished the last and 
present century, appears to have been in a great degree connected 
with the history ot Europe during the same period, we shall take a 
brief view of the latter; beginning with England and France ; the 
two countries which seem in several respects to have had tne most 
considerable share in the changes that have taken place. 

2 4t the period of the deaths of queen Anne and Lewis XIV. 
(see Sect. LXIV.) England and France appear to have stood in situa- 
tions diametrically opposite. England had just obtained all that she 
wanted from a revolution ; France had scarcely begun to ieei that she 
stood in need of one. England had succeeded m placing her civil and 
religious rights on a sure footing ; France was as yet but little sensible 
that hers had been greatly violated. England was recovering from a 
M m 2 



414 MODERN HISTORY. 

state of misrule and licentiousness , France was declining more than 
ever into such a condition. In England, Newton had established his 
new system of philosophy, and Locke illustrated the principles of a 
free government ; in France, Descartes still held the minds of men in 
a state of fascination and enchantment, and the people knew not what 
it was to be free. 

3. The French government, by too great severity in political and 
religious matters, had compelled many of her subjects to take refuge 
in foreign countries, where they were at liberty to make their own re- 
flections, to print and to publish their thoughts upon the comparative 
despotism of the country from which they had been driven, and the 
delusions to which the subjects of the latter were exposed. 

4. Among those who had been thus banished, or compelled to retire, 
no one could have done more to unsettle the minds of his countrymen, 
in regard both to religion and politics, than the celebrated Bayle. 
His object appears, however, to have been merely to unsettle them ; 
for his whole work is a tissue of doubts and difficulties, which he had 
no disposition to resolve, but to leave to every man^s own judgment to 
determine, after having very impartially stated all the arguments and 
all the facts he could possibly collect, on both sides of every question. 

5. The French had been so long used to submission, that merely to 
teach them to doubt was a grand step towards a revolution in their 
opinions ; but Bayle did not live to see the seeds he had been sowing 
come to any perfection. It was not. according to the account of the 
French themselves, till Voltaire, partly in a state of exile, had visited 
England, that they began to ripen. In England, Voltaire became ac- 
quainted with the philosophy of Newton and Locke, and saw some of 
the best political principles of the latter established and in action 
but being the guest of Bolingbroke, his deistical principles, which 
were very early made known by a passage in his tragedy of CEdipus, 
underwent no change, or were probably more deeply fixed and con- 
firmed. 

6. Though Shaftesbury, Wolston, Collins, Toland, Tindal, and 
others, had attacked revelation, and either openly or insidiously sought 
to imbue the minds of the English with their deistical principles ; the 
public in general were little affected by their writings. Men of supe- 
rior talents, superior credit, and very superior learning, had lived, or 
were living, capable of giving a different tone to the feelings of the 
people. Newton, Locke, Addison, Steele, Clarke, Swift, &c, were 
amply sufficient to support the cause of religion ; and not only to de- 
fend the very outworks of Christianity, but to avert the shafts of ridi- 
cule, and set at naught the sarcasms of infidelity. In those admirable 
periodica] papers, the Spectator, the Guardian, the Tattler, &c, we 
may trace a direct and most benevolent design of rescuing the rising 
generation from the contagion of bad examples, and the influence ot 
false principles. 

7. In France it was otherwise : deism, though weak against the 
plain evidences of Christianity, was strong against the fanaticism of a 
bigoted, and the superstition of a corrupted church. The banter of 
Voltaire soon began to take effect, when aimed at things and persons 
so vulnerable as the monastic orders, and the controverted points in 
dispute between the Jesuits and Jansenists. The defence of religion 
also, in consequence of these disgraceful and puerile conflicts, and the 
plausibility of the attacks that were made upon it, -which struck hard 
at its abuses, fell into hands little capable of wielding the weapons so 
effectually employed in England. The dread of derision too soon 



MODERN HISTORY. 415 

damped the spirit of pulpit eloquence, which had cast such a lustre 
on the names of Saurin, Massillon, &c. ; and converted even the chris- 
tian preacher into a philosopher of the modern school. Among those 
who first appeared in defence of revealed religion against the deists, 
the French themselves have particularly mentioned the younger Ra- 
cine, the cardinal de Polignac, and M. Le Franc de Pompignan. 
The first wrote a heavy poem, which few read ; the second a long 
philosophical poem in Latin, which not many could read ; and the 
last published some sacred odes, of which Voltaire found room to say, 
with his usual wit, " Sacres Us sont, car personne rfy touche." Though 
Voltaire might have imbibed his deism in part from Bolingbroke, it 
was plainly not a plant of English growth ; but it proved to be sadly 
congenial at that time to the soil of France. 

8. The regency had wrought a great change in the principles and 
manners of that lively people. The profligate habits of the duke of 
Orleans opened a wide field to libertines and freethinkers, and natu- 
rally encouraged them to speak their minds more freely upon all sub- 
jects than would otherwise have been consistent with the spirit of the 
government. Religion and morals, indeed, could not have received a 
greater blow than from the extraordinary elevation of the infamous 
Dubois to the rank of cardinal, and to the archbishopric of Cambray, 
so lately filled by the amiable and virtuous Fenelon. 

9. While the morals of the French were thus becoming daily more 
depraved, the manners of the English were evidently much improved. 
The grave and austere character of William III., the correct deport- 
ment of Mary, and her sister, queen Anne, had effectually checked 
the licentiousness of the two preceding reigns, and given encourage-. 
raent to a set of writers peculiarly capable of amending the age, of 
inculcating true piety and sound morality, and giving a better tone to 
the amusements of the public. Instead of the gross indelicacies which 
had disgraced the writings and degraded the talents, of Vanburgh, 
Behn, Congreve, and even Diyden, the taste and manners of the nation 
derived great improvement and advantages from the more chaste and 
correct performances of Addison, Steele, Rowe, Prior, Pope, Thomson, 
Akenside, &.c. The stage underwent a wholesome reformation, and 
in every department of literature there appeared a manifest leaning 
towards whatever could conduce to purity of sentiment and delicacy 
of feeling. 

10. Had Voltaire carried back with him from our shores, as he 
might have done, a purer form of Christianity, and a better system of 
morals, as well as a more correct philosophy, and sounder principles of 
government, he might have conferred a lasting benefit on his country ; 
a benefit the more timely and critical, as it would possibly have pre- 
vented some of the worst evils which befel that unhappy nation in her 
subsequent struggles for liberty. Bayle had taught the French to 
doubt ; Voltaire, having taken a near, though imperfect view of Eng- 
land, taught them to think and to inquire ; while a greater man than 
himself was contributing, though more slowly and quietly, to the 
same end. 

11. Almost at the very time that Voltaire was in England, Montes- 
quieu visited the same country ; but appears principally to have con- 
fined his views to the great object of his researches, the spirit of hei 
laws, and the leading principles of her admirable constitution. There 
he learned to admire, in its purest form, a limited monarchy, and a 
system of jurisprudence, equally adverse to tyranny and licentiousness; 
equally friendly to the wholesome authority of the magistrate, and the 



410 MODERN HISTORY. 

jn.sl rights of the people. Montesquieu, however, (though in his Per- 
sian Letters he had betrayed a leaning towards deism,; moved in a 
line distinct from that generally taken by the philosophers of the day. 
While Voltaire very soon manifested a desire of taking the lead of all 
the wits and freethinkers, however different their talents, their charac- 
ters, or their principles, Montesquieu was not displeased to be left to 
himself, and to leave his great work to make its own impressions, how- 
ever slowly, on sensible and ingenuous minds. Its first effects of any 
importance may, perhaps, be traced in the remonstrances of the par- 
liaments, who began to take a higher tone after the publication of 
U esprit des Lots, and to consider themselves more in the light of rep- 
resentatives of the people. 

12. A number of very extraordinary men were beginning at the 
same time to draw upon themselves the attention of the world, and to 
employ their talents in different lines, and often upon very different 
principles, to enlighten the world, and emancipate it from the thral- 
dom of ancient prejudices and inveterate abuses. Among these, how- 
ever, none were more extravagantly eccentric than J. J. Rousseau. 
This extraordinary man was decidedly for new modelling the whole 
system of political society, and reducing it to principles which existed 
only in his own imagination. Not having ever seen a race of savages, 
he fancied they must be the more perfect the nearer they were to a 
stale of nature ; and being tormented with the restraints of civilized 
society, he concluded civilization itself to be an evil. These sophisms 
served to render him the idol of the equalizing and destroying dema- 
gogues of the revolution. It was impossible to resist the impressions 
made by the captivating pictures he drew ; but they seldom had any 
better effect than that of rendering his votaries as dissatisfied with the 
world as he himself was, and bewildering their imaginations with 
doubts and difficulties innumerable. He knew how to appreciate the 
sublime morality of the gospel, though he could not regulate his own 
actions by it ; and having found in the bible, as in all other cases, 
something that dissatisfied his restless and irritable mind, and reviling 
what he could not approve, or did not sufficiently understand, he cer- 
tainly did as much mischief to the cause of revealed religion, calling 
himself a christian all the while, as the worst of his deistical contem- 
poraries. His opinions and his actions, as exhibited in his own 
writings, will for ever render him an object of admiration mingled 
with pity, if not in some instances with abhorrence ! 

3 3. But it was, in no iong course of time, discovered that the free 
opinions that were afloat, and which were as various as the persona 
who entertained them, and who had as yet no common bond oi union, 
as Voltaire, Rousseau, Buffon, Diderot, D'Alembert, Duclos, Helve- 
tius, Marmontel, Condillac, Raynal, Volney, (to name but a few, J 
should by some means or other be embodied and consolidated, that 
the whole of their several thoughts and observations on different sub- 
jects might be presented to the world in a mass. This was the origin 
of that great and voluminous undertaking, the Encyclopedic, spoken 
of before, planned by Diderot and D'Alembert ; and which, to say 
the least of it, seemed to be a treasure of universal science, far more 
comprehensive, at least, than any thing of the kind before attempted, 
being not confined t^ what might strictly be called the arts and 
sciences, bui extending to every question of government, civil econo- 
my, and finance. 

14. The Dictionnaire ^ncyclopedique, amidst many faults and ex 
travagances, contained uns 'oubtedly much important matter, written in 



MODERN HISTORY. 41? 

so agreeab e a style, as to be admirably fitted to excite and promote 
a thirst after general knowledge, universal inquiry and investigation, 
a confidence in private judgment, and a prejudice against every thing' 
that appeared to have no other support than custom and authority. 
Wheat might be torn up with the tares, and tares often sown instead 
of corn : but it must be acknowledged that we stand indebted to the 
projectors of this work for the detection and extirpation of many 
errors, and the powerful stimulus given by their movements to the 
spirit of free inquiry and useful research. 

15. The persons engaged in it have been so generally called philos- 
ophers, and have been styled such in so many histories of the French 
revolution, that it is almost necessary to observe that the greater part 
of them bore little resemblance to those who had heretofore been dig- 
nified with that title. The regent, duke of Orleans, though dissolute 
in his habits of life, was a man of taste, talent, and information ; so 
chat the savans of France, who had heretofore been a retired order of 
men, became about this period the life of society, and the ornaments 
of the highest circles in the metropolis. Some few, indeed, still kept 
at a distance from the court, but, generally speaking, such was the 
state of things during the regency ; and afterwards, when Lewis XV. 
fell into that disgraceful course of life, which clouded his latter days, 
and subjected him and his mistresses to the censure of the clergy^ 
even Voltaire, whom the king personally disliked, and the Encyclo- 
paedists, as enemies to the clergy, were taken into favour. They 
were often indeed dismissed again, but never entirely driven from 
court. 

16. This change of public opinion, even in the highest circles, in- 
troduced the learned into places where they never appeared before, 
and gave them a new character. While the influence which the men 
of letters thus began to acquire in society, obliged the noblesse to 
change their habits also, and to mingle with those who before formed 
a distinct class ; it obliged them also to cultivate learning themselves, 
and even the females found it necessary to become more or less 
philosophical. 

17. In the mean while some of these modern philosophers had other 
European courts set open to them, particularly in the northern parts 
of Europe, where a greater degree of liberty in the article of opinion 
already prevailed, very different from the bigoted and Machiavelian 
principles of Rome and Italy, which had hitherto borne sway. Gath- 
er! ne II. of Russia, and Frederic of Prussia, through a laudable desire 
probably of improving and enlightening their semi-barbarous domin- 
ions, invited thither some of the most busy of the French literati ; but 
with little judgment or discrimination. Frederic, besides Voltaire, 
D'Alembert, and Maupertius, gave free admission, and even encour- 
agement, to the atheist La Methrie, the marquis D'Argens, and the abbe 
de Prades ; and Catherine received, and greatly patronised in his 
latter years, the celebrated Diderot. Thus, with the knowledge and 
learning which the new philosophers really possessed, scepticism and 
infidelity were spread far and wide, and there was a sad mixture of 
darkness and illumination in all they taught. 

18. The French revolution has been attributed to the literati, or 
philosophers of those days ; but we should greatly err, if we were to 
suppose that they contemplated generally such a dissolution of things 
as afterwards took place : many, indeed, were dead before the revo- 
lution commenced. Neither Voltaire nor Montesquieu were repub- 
licans : the former had a supreme contempt for the populace ; and 

53 



418 MODERN HISTORY. 

by his flattery of Catherine II. and the marchioness de Pompadour, 
would seem to have had little of the republican spirit in him. Indeed 
it has been asserted of him, that " he loved kings." Raynal is said 
to have shuddered when he saw his own violent imprecations on des- 
potism and tyranny brought into action. Some, however, undoubted- 
ly threw aside all restraints, openly declared themselves deists, atheists, 
&;c, and to their abominable blasphemy and infidelity we may rea- 
sonably impute many of the evils which marked those dreadful times : 
but, in truth, the history of opinions ceases to be connected after a 
short time with the French revolution. It very soon became a strug- 
gle of passions and private interests, and at length terminated in a 
catastrophe as fatal to the literati as to the throne and the altar. That 
fatal instrument, the guillotine, so much spoken of at that time, was 
stained with the blood of some of those very persons who had con- 
tributed most to the advancement of knowledge, and the propagation 
of liberal ideas. 

19. The impulse, however, was now given to two of the most curi- 
ous, ingenious, and inquisitive nations of Europe, and nothing could 
possibly exceed the rapidity with which every branch of science has 
since been cultivated ; in Britain, constantly with more steadiness, 
gravity, and judgment, than in France, though not with more zeal and 
activity. The Germans, in the mean while, in the northern parts 
more particularly, seem to have devoted their time to studies of 
rather a different description, being known chiefly for works of in- 
tense research and most profound learning. Experimental philosophy, 
natural history, and chemistry, have indeed been also cultivated by 
them with considerable success ; but in works of fancy, wit, and 
humour, they have not acquired so much credit as their neighbours. 
A singular disposition to indulge in tales of wonder, chivalry, and 
knight-errantry, has been manifested in most of their works of imagi- 
nation ; and in metaphysics, they have produced systems, which, while 
they betray an extraordinary talent for the investigation of such ab- 
struse subjects, are certainly more to be admired for their ingenuity 
than their utilit}". 

20. No countiy in Europe, perhaps, can have undergone greater 
improvements, during the period of which we have been treating, than 
Russia ; but her improvement has not been so much progressive as 
sudden. The mighty genius of Peter the great determined him to 
introduce his own extensive empire at once into the commonwealth of 
Europe ; and, instead of waiting to give his subjects a capacity for 
improving themselves, as other nations had done, he eagerly adopted 
all that had been discovered elsewhere, and converted his rude people 
into a civilized nation, just as far as such methods could reach. He 
taught them to adopt and imitate what they were as yet in no condi- 
tion to invent, or even improve, and left it to his successors to fill up 
the gaps that might remain unprovided tor at the time of his death. 
His subjects, or rather slaves, obeyed his dictates, and have continued 
since to learn from their neighbours, till they have attained to such 
proficiency in the arts of life, as to be no longer regarded as a rude or 
ignorant people, though all the other countries of Europe had the start 
of them till the very close of the seventeenth century. 

21. Peter the great had, in a small compass of time, some very 
weak and some very wise successors. The former have not been 
suffered to stand long in the way of the latter, and though their re- 
moval has savoured little of the civilization and improvement of which 
we have been speaking, it cannot be denied that Russia has been pre- 



MODERN HISTORY. 419 

vented by many singular occurrences from relapsing into her former 
state of rudeness and barbarity. The extremes of magnificence and 
rudeness, indeed, are too often found to meet ; and the middle class 
has by no meang yet acquired that importance in society which is so 
essential to every well-regulated government. The state of things 
still exhibits too much of the old narrow line of distinction, of lords 
and vassals ; nevertheless, Russia has obtained much, and advanced 
considerably. Where, little more than a century ago, wolves fed and 
sought their prey, an immense and magnificent city and metropolis 
now stands, thronged with inhabitants from all parts of the globe ; but 
perhaps it would be well if she would consent to step back and give a 
solid and more natural base to her acquirements. The system of 
adoption and imitation has brought her to a state rather of superficial 
than of real greatness. She has had her universities before her 
schools ; but it could not well be otherwise in so sudden an improve- 
ment : much remains to be done before the nation at large, in its sev- 
eral relations, social and political, can be said to be really and effectu- 
ally civilized. 

22. Sweden, during the eighteenth century, produced many eminent 
men, and. contributed largely to the advancement of science. It may 
be sufficient to mention, in proof of this, the names of Linnaeus, vVal- 
lerius, Cronstadt, Bergman, Scheele, Thunberg, and Sparrman. 

23. The Danes have not been idle, but have encouraged in many 
ways the promotion of literature and philosophy ; mathematics and 
astronomy, zoology, botany, and other sciences, have been cultivated 
with good success ; and many splendid works are extant, that reflect 
great credit on the spirit and ardour of the government, as well as of 
individuals, and the learned societies instituted and established there. 



DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS. 

1. Many new discoveries and inventions of lasting benefit to man- 
kind, as well as many most essential improvements of old inventions 
and discoveries, have marked the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ; 
some of the most remarkable of which it will be sufficient merely to 
name, as they are already become too common and familiar to need 
explanation ; such as inoculation, and much more recently, vaccina- 
tion ; steam-engines and steam-boats ; printing of linen and cotton 
cloths ; p> ct P er f° r rooms ? figured silks and carpets ; spinning ma- 
chines ; stereotype printing, and lithographic engraving; musical 
types; porcelain and pottery ; _ particularly Welch and iron-stone china ; 
lightning conductors ; time-pieces ; pneumatic, electrical, and galvanic 
apparatus ; life-boats and life^reservers ; the sjjeaking-irumpet, scife- 
iy-lamp, telegraphs, gas-hghts, panoramas, balloons, reflecting and 
achromatic telescopes, concave mirrors, with various other optical and 
astronomical instruments. 

2. Laws and governments have been advancing towards a greater 
degree of perfection, though in many countries very slowly, and 
manifestly under difficulties and impediments which time only can 
remove. The French revolution opened people's eyes to ancient 
abuses ; but by inducing all the evils and horrors of anarchy- did by 
no means accomplish so much for real liberty, as might have been 
wished and expected ; like other tumultuary revolutions, it terminated 
in a military despotism, and its effects on the continent of Europe 
have been hitherto partial, and apparently of much less importance as 



420 MODERN HISTORY. 

to the actual amelioration of things than many persons expected. Still 
we may justly enumerate among the changes conducive to the future 
benefit, comfort, and happiness of mankind, the steps taking- in sev- 
eral states to restore or establish the representative system of go\ em- 
inent ; the dissolution of many monastic institutions, and feudal priv- 
ileges ; the check that has been given to arbitrary imprisonment, 
torture, the horrors of the inquisition, and the African slave-trade , 
the improvements that have taken place, principally through the in- 
terposition of our benevolent countryman, Mr. Howard, in the man* 
agement of prisons, and the extraordinary steps lately taken, especial- 
ly in the British dominions, for the better education of the poor and 
their instruction in religion. 

3. It would be vain indeed to attempt to enumerate the astonishing 
additions that have been made within these few years, to the public 
establishments for the promotion of knowledge, the advancement ot 
professional skill, and the relief of the necessities of mankind. Phil- 
osophical societies of all descriptions have been formed in various 
parts, under the most favourable circumstances of support and encour- 
agement. The propagation of Christianity has been attended to, and 
promoted with extraordinary zeal, not only by individuals, but by 
missionary and Bible-societies, far too numerous to mention. Every 
description of medical, chirurgical, and other assistance, has been 
furnished to the poor, by a most extraordinary increase of hospitals 
and infirmaries, dispensaries, asylums, and charity-schools. The 
naval and military professions have had the benefit conferred on them 
of new and distinct academies, including a charitable provision for the 
children of those who have perished in either service. The irr proved 
§tate of chemistry and mechanical skill, has advanced many arts to a 
Tery high degree of perfection, and much assisted both the manufac- 
turing and agricultural industry ; nor should we omit to mention, as 
among the improvements of latter years, by which our own country in 
particular has been benefited in the highest degree, the amendment 
of the public roads, the increased means and facilities of public con- 
veyance and communication, and the advancement of inland navigation, 



RELIGION. 

1. In regard to religion, from the close of the seventeenth century 
to the year 1,820, we may remark that paganism continues to prevail 
over the greater part of Asia, Africa, and the new discovered islands, 
as well as among the Indians of America, North and South, (in the 
settlements of the Spaniards and Portuguese, the Roman Catholic re- 
ligion has been introduced of course.) Mahometanism prevails in 
some parts of India, in Persia, Arabia, Egypt, the States of Barbary, 
Syria, and Turkey. The Jews continue dispersed over every part ot 
the world, but in a state and condition far better than was formerly 
the case ; in Europe they are no longer exposed to cruel and wanton 
acts of oppression and persecution, and in some countries they have 
obtained important privileges. In Abyssinia the majority of the 
people are said to be christians, and throughout the whole of the Eu- 
ropean settlements of North America, Christianity is the received re- 
ligion, though under a variety of denominations, — Congregationa lists, 
Presbyterians, Dutch reformed church, Episcopalians, "Baptists, Qua- 
kers, Methodists, Roman Catholics, German Lutherans, German Cal- 



MODERN HISTORY. 421 

mists, Moravians, Tunkers, Mennoniste, Universalists, Swedenboi 
ans, and Shakers. 

2. In regard to leligion or Christianity, on the continent of Europe 
has been already shown what rude attacks it had to sustain, during 

ne course and progress of the French revolution. Deism and even 
theism were openly avowed in their national assemblies ; the im^ 
mortality of the soul and resurrection of the body scouted at, and 
death pronounced to be an eternal sleep. Paganism was in some de- 
gree revived, the tree of liberty substituted for the cross, and the 
goddess of reason elevated above the God of Christians. During the 
directorial and consular governments, however, Catholicism was re- 
stored, but under very altered circumstances ; without its accompani- 
ments of monasteries and nunneries, and very much detached from 
the sway and authority of the papal see. 

3. The protestant churches, of all sects and denominations, have 
done much, as was before observed, by missions in every direction, to 
spread the knowledge of Christianity, but seldom with that cordiality 
and unanimity that might have been wished, and which could not 
have failed to have given greater effect to their exertions. Among 
those who have appeared most zealous, though not most discreet, we 
may reckon the Moravians and Methodists; two sects or parties, 
whose most avowed object it has been to stem the torrent of vice and 
corruption, prevailing amongst professed christians. The methodists 
have generally called themselves of the church of England, though in 
many material respects they appear to have deviated from it, both in 
doctrine and discipline, and have for some time been divided amongst 
themselves into two great parties, one espousing the Calvinistic, the 
other the Arminian, tenets. It is common to refer the origin of 
Methodism to the year 1,729, when the two brothers, John and Charles 
vVes.ey, took the lead of those who adhered to the Arminian doctrines, 
Mr. George Whitefield, who joined them in 1,735, became, in 1,741, 
the head of the Calvinistic division. 

4. The modern Moravians take their date from the year 1,723, 
when they first settled at Hernhut, in Upper Lusatia, on the estates 
of Nicholas Lewis, count of Zinzendorf, who, in 1,735, became their 
bishop. They profess to receive the Augsburg confession ; are meek 
and quiet in their habits and principles, but have at times adopted a 
strange phraseology, which was thought to affect their moral character, 
and procured them many enemies. As missionaries they have been 
extremely active, particularly in the West Indies and America : they 
profess to be the remains of the Hussites. 

5. The emperor Joseph II. relieved his protestant subjects of all 
denominations from many galling restrictions, and greatly abridged 
the power of the pope. Many catholic princes, even the ecclesiasti- 
cal states, followed his example in various particulars. In favouring, 
however, an unlimited freedom of opinion at such a moment, he open- 
ed the door to the introduction of deistical principles, and facilitated 
the formation of a sect of illuminati, which, during the course and 
progress of the French revolution, taught and disseminated doctrines 
adverse in the highest degree to the order of civil society, the rights 
of property, and the christian faith. 

6. The papal authority, during the latter years of the period under 
discussion, has been greatly abridged in all countries heretofore sub- 
ject to it ; even in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Sicily ; nor is it likely 
to be recovered, notwithstanding the attempts lately made to restore 
martially the order of Jesuits and the inquisition. Of the indigiu 

N n 



422 MODERN HISTORY. 

offered to the last and present pope by the French we have spoken 
elsewhere. At one time they so entirely took the reins of government 
at Rome into their own hands, that the pope and cardinals were 
obliged to take flight, in which situation Pius VI. died. His suc^ 
cessor, Pius VII., since the final overthrow of Buonaparte, has lived 
in peace and quietness, in his capital, exercising, notwithstanding his 
recall of the Jesuits, a very tolerant and inoffensive sway. It is, how- 
ever, to be lamented, that, in the instance of the pope, as well as of 
the king of Naples, and others, their resentment of the French usur- 
pations on their return to their dominions has been carried so far as to 
abrogate every ordinance of the French Emperor, however wise or 
salutary, and even to undo what had been begun, manifestly tending 
to the improvement of their respective countries. 

HISTORY, POLITE LITERATURE, FINE ARTS, he. 

1. We feel ourselves rathei at a loss to give any satisfactory account 
of the progress that has been made in the branches of knowledge 
pointed out by the title of this section : it would far exceed our limits 
to attempt to enumerate the many historical works that have been pub- 
lished during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, or to go into any 
regular discussion of the particular merits of the several poets, paint- 
ers, musicians, philosophers, philologists, &c. &c, who may be said to 
have distinguished themselves in the period of which we have been 
treating. To do this with any degree of justice, we should be cblig- 
ed, perhaps to divide them into many classes, and assign to the sev- 
eral individuals of the long list that might be produced, their respec- 
tive ranks and stations, from the highest degree of perfection to medi- 
ocrity, or lower ; we should have to draw a comparison between them 
and their predecessors, and consider, in various points of view, every 
advance they had made in their different callings, studies, and pur- 
suits : but such a discussion would be quite unsuitable to a work like 
the present. Many of those, indeed, who have contributed to enlarge 
the boundaries of knowledge during the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries, have been already mentioned ; but there are still some 
names which almost demand our notice, before we entirely close this 
volume. It should, however, be observed, that many very eminent 
persons, who lived till long after the commencement of the eighteenth 
century, belong to a different period, having been the ornaments of 
what is called the age of Louis XIV. It may be best, perhaps, to 
arrange the few we feel bound to select from the great mass of au- 
thors, artists, &c, according to their countries. 

2. In Germany the following may be said to have acquired a high 
reputation: Mascov, Mosheim, Pfeffel, Herder, Muller, in History ; 
Schiller in History and Tragedy; Klopstock, Gesner, Wieland 
Kotzebue, Goethe, in Poetry and Dramatic writing ; in Painting 
Mengs ; Ingenhouz in Chemistry, and Bode in Astronomy ; Handel, 
Gluck, Haydn, and Mozart, in Music ; Lavater in the fanciful science 
of Physiognomy. Even the names of Mesmer, Mainaduc, Gall, and 
Spurzheim, may require to be mentioned, as having for some time, in 
an extraordinary manner, amazed the ignorant, and deceived the 
credulous, by their strange systems of Animal Magnetism and 
Craniology. 

3. In France, Camlet, Montfaucon, the Count de Caylus, Rollin- 
Vertot, Rapin, Goguet, Millot, Raynal, Mabiy, and the Abbe Bar- 



MODERN HISTORY. 423 

theleiny, part cularly distinguished themselves in the line of History 
and Antiquities ; to whom we may now add, perhaps with reason and 
justice, Mad. de Stael, and M. La Cretelle M. Bailly, one of the 
victims of the Revolution, rendered himself conspicuous by his very 
curious History of Astronomy, and other works. Many of his con- 
temporaries, who applied themselves to other branches of science, 
have been already mentioned. Some ot them also fell by the hands 
of the public executioner, during* the dreadful period of the Revolu- 
tion. Their most celebrated painter, however, David, escaped, but 
with more reputation as an artist than as a man ; for his own proceed- 
ings, as a revolutionist, were base and sanguinary. 

4. In Great Britain, we have to boast, in the line of History, of the 
names of Robertson, Watson, Hume, Gibbon, Lyttelton, Goldsmith, 
Roscoe, Russell, Gillies, Ferguson, Stuart, Mitford ; in Law, of Sir 
William Blackstone, whose Commentaries, for elegance and perspi- 
cuity of diction, stand unrivalled. Bolingbroke and Swift are justly 
held to have improved the English language, in the two main articles 
of energy and beauty. The style of Dr. Johnson is less chaste, 
though, perhaps, equally forcible. The name of Adam Smith will 
probably descend to the latest posterity, for his masterly work on the 
wealth of nations, a subject in which he seems almost to have taken 
the lead, as an original writer. In Painting, the names of Hogarth, 
Reynolds, and West, stand high for originality, taste, conception, and 
expression ; in Metaphysics, Hume, Hartley, Berkeley, Reid, Baxter, 
and Priestley, have distinguished themselves. To the Poets already 
mentioned we must add Gay, Young, Shenstone, Collins, Gray, Ma- 
son, Cowper, Crabbe, Scott, Byron ; as Novelists, Richardson, Smol- 
lett,^ Fielding, Burney, Edgeworth, &c. Garrick and Siddons have 
conferred immortal honour on the English Stage. 

5. Italy, though labouring under great disadvantages, has been by 
do means deficient in learned and scientific persons, since the close of 
the seventeenth century. In history and antiquities, in poetry, dra- 
matic works, natural history, drawing, engraving, and sculpture, the 
following names richly deserve to be delivered down to posterity : 
Baronius, Giannone, Muratori, Maffei, Metastasio, Goldoni, Algarotti, 
Gozzi, Tiraboschi,Beccaria, Spallanzani, Alfieri, Bartolozzi, Cipriani, 
Canova. France and Italy seem to have a joint claim to a living 
author of considerable fame, M. Simondes de Sismondi. 



TREATY OF VIENNA, 1,815. 

1. As Europe, generally speaking, may be said to continue at this 
moment in the state in which it was left by the above treaty, we shall 
conclude with a brief sketch of the changes that took place at that 
memorable period. The duchy of Warsaw was given to the emperor 
of Russia, with permission to assume the titles of czar and king of 
Poland, some parts, however, being secured to Prussia, under the title 
of grand Duchy of Posen. The town of Cracow, in Little Poland, 
on the banks of the Vistula, was declared to be for ever a free, in- 
dependent, and strictly neutral city, under the protection of Austria, 
Russia, and Prussia. The king of Saxony was confirmed in his regal 
titles, but at the price of many important cessions to Prussia, princi- 

ethat of the duchy of Saxony. Prussia, besides, recovered 
zic, Quedlinburg, and many other places ; yielding, however, to 
the king of Great Britain, now become king of Hanover also, many 



424 UNITED STATES. 

lordships and principalities, in other parts of Germany. A new Ger 
manic confederation was established, the members of which were 
declared to be equal in their rights, and bound to render to each other 
mutual assistance. Their affairs to be confided, first to a federative 
diet, amounting to seventeen votes ; and, 2dly, to a general assembly, 
forming sixty-nine votes ; who are to decide upon all regulations 
touching the fundamental laws of the confederation. The diet to 
assemble at Frankfort on the Maine, and Austria to preside. The 
three important fortresses of Landau, Mentz, and Luxembourg, being 
assigned over to the confederation. 

2. The united provinces of the Netherlands, late the Belgic states, 
were formed into a kingdom, jointly with those of Holland, in favour 
of the house of Orange Nassau, late stadtholders ; and to the same 
sovereign was granted the duchy of Luxembourg, with the title of 
grand duke. 

3. The integrity of the nineteen cantons of Switzerland was ac- 
knowledged, and guarantied ; and Geneva, for the first time, consti- 
tuted a canton of the Helvetic confederacy. The states of Genoa 
were annexed to the kingdom of Sardinia, in the place of many re- 
nunciations on the part of the latter power, principally in favour of 
Geneva. The grand duchy of Tuscany was settled on the archduke 
Ferdinand of Austria ; and king Ferdinand the IVth was restored to 
the sovereignty of the Two Sicilies. 



PART FOURTH. 
UNITED STATES 



SECTION L 

DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 

1. It was somewhat natural that the distinguished author of the 
Elements of History should almost exclusively confine himself to the 
great events of the old world. It will be observed that the discovery 
of America by Columbus embraces only a short space, (see Section 
XLI.) and that North America, the first settlement of the United 
States, the revolution and severance of those states from the crown of 
Great Britain, and the more recent dispute of the States with Great 
Britain, are dismissed by both authors in a few words. (See Section 
XLIL, and Sections VIII. and XX. of the Continuation.) This con- 
sideration will suggest the propriety of a more particular narration of 
the events which relate to the United States, for whose particular use 
the present edition of this work is intended. 



UNITED STATES. 425 

2. The honour of accomplishing an exploit so sublime as that of the 
discovery of this western hemisphere, was gained by Christopher 
Columbus. This great man, a native of Genoa, descended from a 
respectable family, was well qualified by nature and education to be- 
come distinguished on the ocean. Ardently inclined towards that 
element, he went to sea at the age of fourteen. After a variety ot 
adventures serving to enlarge his knowledge more than to increase his 
fortune, he went to Lisbon. Here, having married the daughter of 
Perestrello, a Portuguese navigator of much celebrity, his favourite 
passion of making discoveries was rendered more irresistible by read- 
ing the journals of his father-in-law, which had fallen into his hands. 

3. The attention of the Portuguese was at that time directed to the 
finding a passage by water to the East Indies ; and they intended to 
accomplish this purpose by passing to the south until they reached the 
southern extremity of Africa, and then taking an easterly course. 
The spherical figure of the earth was then known, and its magnitude 
had been ascertained with some good degree of accuracy ; and the 
active mind of Columbus, after having attentively compared the 
observations of modern navigators with the conjectures of the ancients, 
at last came to the conclusion, that, by sailing directly to the west, 
new countries, which it was likely formed a part of the great continent 
of Asia, must be discovered. His opinion was strengthened by the 
discovery, after a long course of westerly wind, of pieces of carved 
wood, trees, and canes, and dead bodies, the natives of another clime, 
driven on the shores of the Madeira isles and the Azores. 

4. Fully satisfied with the truth of his system, Columbus was im- 
patient to bring it to the test of experiment. He first made applica- 
tion to the senate of Genoa for patronage, desirous that his native, 
country should reap the fruits of his labour and ingenuity ; but here 
his proposals were rejected as the dream of a chimerical projector. 
Not discouraged by mis repulse, he laid his plans before John king 
of Portugal, who basely attempted a fraud on him, by despatching a 
vessel in pursuit of the discovery, after drawing from Columbus all 
the information which treacheiy could devise. The pilot selected foi 
this purpose, being no less deficient in courage than were his em- 
ployers in dignity and justice, returned to Lisbon without making any 
discovery. 

5. Disgusted with the treacheiy, Columbus instantly went to Spain, 
and laid his plan before Ferdinand and Isabella, at the same time thai 
he sent his brother Bartholomew to England, for the purpose of nego- 
tiating for the patronage of Henry Vli.j reported to be one of the 
most sagacious and opulent princes of the age. Accident deprived 
England of the renown of this discovery ; the brother of Columbus 
on his way being captured by pirates, and detained in captivity many 
years : although arriving in England in great indigence, Henry re- 
ceived the overtures of Columbus more favourably than any other 
monarch, and invited him to that country. But it was too late. The 
great discoverer, after combating many and sore disappointments, 
succeeded at length in securing the Spanish court, aided by two rich, 
generous, and vigilant patrons, Quintanella and Santangel. Ferdinand 
was still restrained by his characteristic caution and reserve ; but 
Isabella, alive t® the glory which must accrue from the accomplish- 
ment ot so grand an enterprise, declared her resolution to employ 
Columbus ; and, in the low state of her finances, consequent On a long 
and serious contest with the Moors, who had then but just been ex- 
pelled from Spain, offered to pledge her jewels in order to complete 

Nn2 54 



426 UNITED STATES. 

the preparations of the voyage : Santangel however relieved the diffi- 
culty, by advancing from his private purse the necessary sum. 

6. April 17, 1,492, more than seven years after the date of his first 
application, an agreement with Columbus was concluded. The ex- 
pedition was fitted out at Palos, a small town of the province of 
Andalusia ; but it was badly suited to the service for wnich it was 
intended. It consisted of three vessels, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, 
and the Nigna — the first of inconsiderable burthen commanded by 
Columbus as admiral ; and the two last, not superior in size to large 
boats, by two brothers, Martin and Vincent Pinzon : the whole pro- 
vided with ninety men, and victualled for twelve months. 

7. August 3, Columbus set sail. He touched at the Canary islands, 
where hz refitted his crazy vessels, and departed from Gomera, 
Sept. 6 Here he took his course due west, leaving the track of all 
former navigators, and stretched boldly into seas unknown. Very 
soon his sailors, alarmed at the distance they had proceeded without 
finding the expected land, began to mutiny, and placed Columbus in a 
situation in which any other man would have yielded to their entreaties 
to return. Fertile in expedients, possessing a thorough knowledge ot 
mankind, an insinuating address, and a happy talent at governing, he 
succeeded day after day in beguiling the discontented seamen far 
beyond their own determinations, until every succeeding hour present- 
ed stronger and stronger indications that land could be at no great 
distance. For some days the sounding line had reached the bottom ; 
the flocks of birds increased, and some of them of a kind supposed to 
fly not far from shore ; the clouds around the sun assumed a new 
appearance ; the air was more mild, and, during the night, the wind 
became unequal and variable. On the evening of Oct. 11, he ordered 
the ships to lie to, in the fear of running ashore. That night Colum- 
bus observed a light, which seemed to be carried about from place to 
place ; and a little after midnight, was heard from the Pinta the joyful 
cry of Land ! 

8. When the morning dawned, an island was seen about two leagues 
to the north : its verdant fields were well stored with wood, presenting 
the aspect of a delightful country. All the boats were immediately 
manned and armed. The Spaniards rowed towards the shore with 
their colours displayed. As they approached the beach, they saw it 
covered w 7 ith a multitude of people, whose attitudes and gestures dis- 
covered wonder and amazement. Columbus was the first who set foot 
on this new world which he had discovered. His men followed ; and 
all kneeling, kissed the ground that they had long desired, but never 
expected to behold : here he erected a. crucifix, returned thanks to 
God, and with the usual formalities took possession of the country. 
To this island, called by the natives Guanahana, Columbus gave the 
name of St. Salvador : it is one of the large cluster called the Baha- 
mas, more than three thousand miles west, but only four degrees south 
of Gomera, the port of the Canaries which he last left. 

9. After discovering several other islands, amongst which were 
Cuba and Hayti ; and using every precaution to secure the benefit of 
a first discovery, by erecting a fort and leaving a party of men on the 
island of Hayti ; on the 4th of January, 1,493, Columbus set sail for 
Europe. The shattered condition of his vessels would have rendered 
the voyage at any time unsafe ; but a succession of storms had well 
nigh committed to the bosom of the deep, and with it ths secret of 
his discovery, his little flotilla. The whole, however, arrived. 

10. At first it was generally supposed, from a similarity in the 



UNITED STATES. 4*7 

productions, that the discovered country was a part of those vast re- 
gions of Asia, comprehended under the general name of India. The 
name of India was given to it by Ferdinand and Isabella ; and, after 
the error which gave rise to the opinion was detected, the name ot 
West Indies has remained, and the aborigines are called Indians. 

11. In 1,498, Columbus, on his third voyage, reached the continent, 
and landed in several places in the provinces of Paria and Cumana. 
But he was deprived of the honour of associating his name with this 
vast portion of the earth, being supplanted by Amerigo Vespucci, a 
native of Florence, who, in 1,499, went on a voyage to America, and 
who published an aocount of his adventures so ingeniously framed as 
tc make it appear that he had the glory of first discovering the conti- 
nent of the new world. 

12. On the 20th of November, 1,497, Vasco de Gama, employed by 
the king of Portugal, first doubled the Cape of Good Hope, which 
opened a passage to the East Indies ; and twenty-three years after 
the first discovery of America by Columbus, Magellan, a native of 
Portugal, in the service of Spain, penetrated into the Pacific ocean, 
by the strait which bears his name, situated at the southern extremity 
of the American continent. 



SECTION II. 

DISCOVERIES BY THE ENGLISH. SETTLEMENT OF VIRGINIA. 

1. The English were the second people that discovered the new 
world, and the first that discovered the continent of America. On the 
24th of June, 1,497, Giovanni Caboto, (or Cabot,) and his son Sebas- 
tian, who were commissioned by Henry VIII. to sail in quest of new 
countries, discovered a large island, to which they gave the name of 
Prima Vesta, or first seen ; now called Newfoundland From this, 
they steered to the north, in search of a passage to India ; but finding 
no appearance of a passage, they tacked about, and ran as far as 
Florida, the island of Cuba, as he relates, being on his left. 

2. On the accession of Elizabeth to the crown of England, a period 
commenced, highly auspicious to mercantile extension. The coast of 
Labrador was explored by Martin Frobisher, under her auspices, in 
the years l,576-'7-'8 ; and sir Francis Drake, about this time, accom- 
plished his celebrated voyage around the globe. 

3. In 1,584, sir Walter Raleigh, a favourite at that time of the 
queen, despatched two small vessels, under the command of Philip 
Amidas and Arthur Barlow, which reached the coast of North Carolina 
on the 4th of July, making their passage in sixty-seven days by way 
of the Canary islands and the West Indies. On their return Amidas 
and Barlow gave a splendid description of the country ; of its beauty, 
fertility, mildness or climate, and serenity of atmosphere ; and Eliz- 
abeth gave to the country the name of Virginia, as a memorial that 
this happy land was discovered under a maiden queen. 

4. In 1,585, sir Walter Raleigh fitted out a squadron of seven small 
vessels, with one hundred and eighty adventurers, which sailed from 
Plymouth, under the command of sir Richard Greenville. This 
coiony was left on the island of Roanoke, under the care of captaia 
Lane ; but through bad management, turning all their attention to the 



428 UNITED STATES. 

search for gold and silver, they were soon assailed by a two-fold 
calamity, the hostility of the natives and the prospect of famine. Sir 
Francis Drake, on his return from the West Indies, at the unanimous 
request of the colonists, carried them back to England, and thus ended 
the ill-conducted experiment, after a trial of nine months. 

5. Early in the following year, three more vessels arrived at the 
same spot, with one hundred and fifty settlers. In about one month 
after, the daughter of captain White, who commanded the expedition, 
and the wife of Ananius Dare, one of his assistants, gave birth to the 
first English female child, which was named Virginia. Misfortune 
pursued this infant settlement. The threatened Spanish armada 
engrossing the attention of the parent country, the colony received no 
supplies, and the inhabitants perished miserably by famine, or by the 
hands of their surrounding enemies. 

6. Sir Walter Raleigh being engaged in other ambitious under- 
takings, so vast and various as were beyond his power to accomplish, 
and becoming cold to the unprofitable scheme of effecting settlements 
in America, assigned his interest in that country to sir Thomas Smith 
and a company of merchants in London, in 1,596. These were satis- 
fied for the present to pursue a petty traffic with the natives, and made 
no attempt to take possession of the soil. 

7. But in the succeeding reign of James, who having concluded an 
amicable treaty with Spain, and terminated a tedious war, the period 
was more auspicious for settlements in America. The attention of the 
monarch was called to this suoject by the efforts of distinguished 
geographers and men of science. James divided into districts of 
nearly equal extent, that portion of North America which stretcnes 
from the 34th to the 45th degree of north latitude, excepting the 
territory of any other christian prince or people already occupied ; 
one called the First, or South Colony, the other the Second, or North 
Colony of Virginia. In 1,606, he authorized certain gentlemen, most- 
ly residents of London, to settle in a limited district of the former ; 
an equal extent of the latter he allotted to several gentlemen of 
Bristol, Plymouth, and other parts of the west of England. These 
grants laid the first foundation of states which in a few centuries were 
destined to become rivals to the mother country in wealth, in science, 
and in power. The supreme government of the colonies was vested 
in a council resident in England, to be nominated by the king ; the 
subordinate jurisdiction in a council which was to reside in America, 
and also to be named by the crown, and act conformably to its in- 
structions. Whatever was required for their sustenance, or for the 
support of commerce, he permitted to be shipped from England free 
of duty, during the space of seven years ; and as an incitement to in- 
dustry, granted them the liberty of trading with other nations, appro- 
priating the duties to be laid on foreign traffic for twenty-one years, as 
a fund for their exclusive benefit. 

8. A vessel of one hundred tons, and two barks, under the command 
of captain Newport, sailed with one hundred and five mew, destined 
to remain in the country : among these was a Mr. Percy, brother of the 
earl of Northumberland, and several officers who had served with rep. 
utation in the pieceding reign. The first land that was discovered was 
a promontory, the southern ["boundary of the Chesapeake, April, 1,607 ; 
this was named cape Henry, in honour of the prince of Wales. The 
spacious inlet was entered, and the expedition coasted the southern 
snore, and up a river sixty miles, called by the natives Powhatan, to 
which the English gave the name of James river, in honour of their 



UNITED STATES. 429 

sovereign. Here a site was fixed for the infant settlement, which was 
named James Town. 

9. Imprudent in their conduct towards the natives, this feeble socie- 
ty was early involved in war. Scarcity of provisions introduced dis- 
eases ; and in a few months half their original number was swept away, 
and the remainder left sickly and dejected* 

10. The government soon devolved on captain John Smith, who 
was originally one of the council appointed by the king, but who had 
unjustly been deprived of his authority by the colonists. This gentle- 
man, who was emphatically the father of Virginia, was a native of 
Lincolnshire : he had distinguished himself in feats of courage and 
chivalry, particularly while engaged in the Hungarian army against 
the Turks. His undaunted temper, deeply tinctured with the ro- 
mantic spirit of the times, was happily adapted to the present trying 
situation of the colony. Soon after he had been called as their leader, 
while hunting in the woods, he was attacked by two hundred Indians, 
who poured in upon him a continued flight of arrows. After perform- 
ing wonderful feats, he sunk in the unequal contest, and was made a 
prisoner. Charmed by his arts and his valour, they released him 
from captivity. Afterwards he was beset by three hundred more of 
these ferocious people, pursued into a marsh, and, after he had thrown 
away his arms, which he could no longer use by reason of the cold, he 
was taken and carried in triumph to Powhatan, the principal chieftain 
of Virginia. Here the doom ot death was pronounced upon him, and 
he was about to receive the fatal blow, when the favourite daughter of 
Powhatan, interposed in his behalf. This amiable child (not then 
thirteen years of age) not only prevented the execution of Smith by 
her entreaties and tears, but caused him to be set at liberty, and sent 
him, from time to time, seasonable presents of provisions. 

11. The colony was now reduced to thirty-eight persons. Soon 
after, however, succours arrived from England, and an addition of one 
hundred new planters was added to their number. But the culture of 
the land, and other useful employments, were neglected, in the futile 
idea that gold had been discovered issuing from a small stream which 
emptied into James river. The effects of the delusion were soon 
severely felt in the prospect of approaching famine. In the hope of 
obtaining relief, Smith, in a small open boat, and with a feeble crew, 
went in search of aid from the Indians. In two different excursions, 
that occupied upwards of four months, he visited ail the countries on 
the eastern and western shores of the Chesapeake bay, entering the 
principal creeks, and tracing the rivers as far as their falls, and ob- 
tained a supply of food for the suffering colony. In these tours, he 
sailed upwards of three thousand miles, amidst almost incredible 
hardships, and brought back with him an account of that large tract of 
country, now comprehended in the two states of Virginia and Mary- 
land, so full and correct, that his map is the original from which all 
subsequent delineations have been formed until lately. 

12. About this period, the old charter being found inconvenient and 
oppressive, a new charter was granted by James, by which the boun- 
daries of the colony were enlarged ; the council in Virginia was abolish- 
ed, and the government vested entirely in one residing in London, the 
members of which were to be chosen by the proprietors, and these to 
nominate a governor, who was to reside in Virginia and carry their 
orders into execution. Lord Delaware was at first appointed to this 
office ; but as this nobleman could not immediately leave England, 
&e power was vested in sir Thomas Gates and sir George Somers, 



430 UNITED STATES. 

who were despatched from England with five hundred planters. A 
violent hurricane separated the fleet on their way ; and the ships with- 
out the officers only arrived at James Town. Presently every thing- 
was reduced to a state of anarchy ; captain Smith, at once the shiela 
and the sword of the colony, being disabled by an accidental explosion 
of gun-powder, the wretchedness which followed is beyond descrip- 
tion ; and the arrival of Gates and Somers, who had been cast away 
on one of the Bermuda islands, although it saved the wretched sur- 
vivors at James Town from immediate death, was unable to preserve 
them until the autumn. Nothing remained but to seek immediate 
assistance ; and with only sixteen days' provision, the colony set sail, 
in hopes of reaching the banks of Newfoundland, and getting relief. 
But before they had arrived at the mouth of the river, they met lord 
Delaware, who brought a large supply of sustenance, new settlers, 
and every thing requisite either for cultivation or defence. Under 
the skilful administration of this nobleman, the colony began, once 
more, to assume a promising appearance. He was succeeded by sir 
Thomas Dale, who concluded a treaty of friendship with the Powha- 
tans, one of the most powerful and warlike tribes of Virginia. 

13. Pocahontas, the amiable female who had preserved the life of 
captain Smith, frequently visited the English settlements ; and during 
this intercourse, she was betraj'ed on board a vessel, and there im- 
prisoned. Her father, who loved her with the most, ardent affection, 
was obliged to discontinue hostilities on such conditions as were dic- 
tated by his treacherous enemy. She was afterwards solicited by 
Mr. Rolfe, a respectable planter, in marriage. Powhatan consented, 
and the marriage was celebrated with extraordinary pomp. From 
this time, the most friendly intercourse subsisted between the colonists 
and the Indians. Rolfe and his wife went to England, where, by the 
introduction of captain Smith, Pocahontas, was received by the court 
with the respect due to her birth ; she was instructed in the christian 
religion, and publicly baptized. About returning to America, Poca- 
hontas died at Gravesend ; leaving one son, from whom are sprung 
some of the most respectable families of Virginia. 

14. Hitherto no individual right of property in lands was establish- 
ed : all was holden and dealt out in common. But the governor, in 
1,616, divided a considerable extent of land into small lots, and grant- 
ed one of these for ever to each individual ; from which period the 
colony rapidly extended. The culture of tobacco, since become the 
great staple of Virginia, was introduced ; but the eager demand for 
the article in England caused for some time a scarcity of food in the 
colony. 

15. About this time, a Dutch ship from the coast of Guinea, having 
sailed up James river, sold to the planters a part of her negroes ; 
which race has been augmented in Virginia by successive importations 
and by natural increase, till it forms more than one third part of the 
population. 

16. In 1,619, sir George Yeardley, the governor, impelled by that 
popular spirit of freedom which has ever been the characteristic of 
Americans, called the first general assembly which was held in Vir- 
ginia. At this time eleven corporations sent representatives to the con- 
vention, which was permitted to assum* legislative power, the natural 
privilege of man. The supreme authority was lodged partly in the 
governor, partly in a council of state appointed by the company, and 
in a genera] assembly, composed of lepresentatives of the people. A 
natural effect of He happy change wa^ ?n increase of agriculture, 



UNITED STATES. 431 

The company extended the trade of the colony to Holland and other 
countries. This measure produced the first difference of sentiment 
Detween the colony and the parent state. Jealous at seeing a com- 
modity, (tobacco,) for which the demand was daily increasing, con- 
ducted to foreign ports beyond its control, thereby causing a diminu- 
tion of revenue, the latter endeavoured to check this colonial enterprise, 
without considering that the restraint was a breach of the sacred prin- 
ciples of justice. 

17. The suspicion of the monarch James was soon roused, and the 
charter, by decision of the king's bench, was declared forfeit, and the 
company dissolved. Charles I. adopted all his father's maxims in 
respect to Virginia, which during a great part of his reign knew no 
other law than the royal will. But the colonists resisting, Charles 
yielded to the popular voice : he recalled Harvey, the obnoxious 
governor, and appointed sir William Berkeley, a man of great abili- 
ties, prudent, virtuous, and popular ; whose influence was directed in 
finally restoring to the people much the same share in the government 
as they had enjoyed previously to the revocation of the charter. 

18. After the execution of the king, and the establishment of the 
commonwealth under Cromwell, through the influence of the governor, 
the colonists continued to adhere to their loj^alty to the king. In 1 ,651, 
the English commonwealth took vigorous measures to reduce the Vir- 
ginians to obedience. A numerous squadron, with land forces, was 
despatched for this purpose. Berkeley resisted, but was unalle to 
maintain an unequal contest, and was soon defeated. The pt ople 
were, however, allowed to retain the privileges of citizens ; but 
Berkeley retired as a private citizen. Cromwell's parliament framed 
acts prohibiting all intercourse between the colonies and foreign states, 
and allowing no trade but in English ships. On the death of Mathews, 
the last governor appointed by Cromwell, the Virginians burst out in 
new violence. They called sir William Berkeley from his retirement, 
boldly erected the royal standard, and proclaimed Charles II., son ot 
their late monarch, to be their lawful sovereign. Charles was, how- 
ever, soon placed on the throne, and the Virginians were thus saved 
from the chastisement to which they were exposed by their previous 
declaration in his favour. But the new king and parliament rewarded 
their fidelity by increasing the restraints upon colonial commerce ! 

13. The number of inhabitants in Virginia in 1,688, exceeded sixty 
thousand, and its population in the previous twenty-eight years was 
doubled. In 1,691, the college of William and Mary was founded. 
To aid in its erection and support, the sovereigns whose name it 
bears, gave nearly two thousand pounds out of their private purse, and 
granted twenty thousand acres of land, and a duty on tobacco, for its 
further encouragement. 



SECTION III. 

SETTLEMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS, RHODE ISLAND, CON- 
NECTICUT, NEW HAMPSHIRE, MAINE, MARYLAND, NORTH 
AND SOUTH CAROLINA, NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, PENN- 
SYLVANIA, DELAWARE,- AND GEORGIA. 

1. The partition of the great territory of Virginia into North and 
South colonies has already been mentioned. Still more feeble were 



432 UNITED STATES. 

the operations of the Plymouth company, to whom was assigned the 
conduct of the northern division, although animated by the zeal of sir 
John Popham, chief justice of England, sir Ferdinando Gorges, and 
other public spirited gentlemen of the west. 

2. In the year 1,607, the same in which James Town was foundedj 
a small settlement was commenced on the river Sagadahoc, now called 
the Kennebec ; but this was soon abandoned. Some fishing vessels 
visited Cape Cod several times ; among them, one commanded by 
captain Smith, who returned with a high-wrought description of the 
coast and country : exhibiting a map of the bays, harbours, &c, on 
which he inscribed " New England ;" the prince of Wales, delighted 
with the representations of Smith, immediately confirmed the name. 

3. To the operations of religion, rather than to the desire of pecu- 
niary emolument, are the various settlements of New England indebt- 
ed for their origin. The sacred rights of conscience and of private 
judgment were not then properly understood ; nor was the charity 
and mutual forbearance taught christians by their divine master prac- 
tised in any country. Every church employed the hand of power in 
supporting its own doctrines, and opposing the tenets of another. In 
reforming the rituals and exterior symbols of the church of England, 
Elizabeth, lest by too wide a departure from the Romish church shs 
might alarm the populace, had allowed many of the ancient ceremonies 
to remain unaltered. With several of these a large number of her 
subjects being dissatisfied, they wished to address Jheir Creator ac- 
cording to their own opinions, but were subjected to veiy rigorous 
penalties. Those who dissented from the established church obtained 
the general name of Puritans, a term applied to them because they 
wished for a purer form of discipline and worship. Among the most 
popular and strenuous declaimers against the established church were 
the Brownists, a sect formed about 1,581, by Robert Brown, who after- 
wards renounced his principles of separation, and took orders in the 
church against which he had so loudly declaimed. The Rev. John 
Robinson, the father of the first settlement of New England, is said to 
have been a follower of Brown, but afterwards renounced the principles 
of the Brownists, and became the founder of a new sect, denominated 
Independents.* Mr. Robinson affirmed that all christian congregations 
were so many independent religious societies, that had a right to be 
governed by their own laws, independent of any foreign jurisdiction. 
Being persecuted in England, he, with many others embracing his 
opinions, removed to Holland, where they formed churches upon their 
own principles. Remaining there some years, the society were de- 
sirous to remove to some other place : they turned their thoughts to 
America, and applied to James, who though he refused to give them 
any positive assurance of toleration, seems to have intimated some 
promise of passive indulgence. 

* By several respectable historians of this country, the Independents 
have been connected with the Brownists, between the opinions and prac- 
tices of whom was a wide difference. The Independents excelled the 
Brownists in the moderation of their sentiments, and in the order of their 
discipline. They possessed candour and charity, believing that true re- 
ligion and solid piety might flourish in those communities under the juris- 
diction of bishops, or the governments of synods or presbyteries. They 
approved of a regular ministry. While the Brownists allowed promiscu- 
ously all ranks and orders of men to teach in public, the Independents ie- 
quired a proper examination of the capacity and talents of their teachers. 



UNITED STATES. 43S 

4. They readily procured a tract of land from the Plymouth com 
parry. One hundred and twenty persons sailed from Plymouth in 
1,620, their destination being Hudson's river : by some treachery of 
the Dutch, who then contemplated and afterwards effected a settlement 
at thet place, they were carried to the north, and landed on cape Cod, 
the eleventh of November of that year. They chose for their resi- 
dence a place called by the Indians Patuxet, to which they gave the 
name of New Plymouth. Before spring, half their number were cut 
off by famine or disease. In a few days after they landed, captain 
Standish was engaged in skirmishing with the Indian-^ , and the many 
disasters which followed, together with the implacable hostility of the 
Indians, which always has subsisted, are perhaps more owing to the 
imprudence of the first settlers, than to the bad disposition of the 
natives. 

5 This colony, like that of Virginia, at first held their goods and 
property in common ; and their progress was retarded as ^ell by this 
circumstance, as by the impulse of imaginary inspiration, which reg- 
ulated all their actions. At the end of ten years, these well meaning 
people, when they became incorporated with their more powerful 
neighbours of Massachusetts bay, did not exceed three hundred. 

6. In the year 1,629, Mr. White, a non-conformist minister at 
Dorchester, having formed an association, purchased from the Ply- 
mouth company a tract extending in length from three miles north of 
Merrimack river to three miles south of Charles river, and in breadth 
from Sue Atlantic to the Southern ocean ; and obtained a charter from 
friaries, similar to that given to the two Virginian companies by James- 
Five ships were fitted out, on board of which were embarked upwards 
of three hundred souls, amongst whom were several eminent non- 
conforming ministers. On their arrival, they found the remnant of a 
small party that had left England the preceding year, under the con- 
duct of Mr. Endicott, who had been appointed by his companions 
deputy governor. They were settled at a place called by the Indians 
Naumkeag, to which he had given the scripture name of Salem. The 
new colonists immediately formed a church, elected a pastor, teacher, 
and elder, disregarding the intentions of the king. They disencum- 
bered their public worship of eveiy superfluous ceremony, and re- 
duced it to the lowest standard of calvinistic simplicity. 

But much as we respect that noble spirit which enabled them to part 
with their native soil, we must condemn the persecuting spirit of the 
colonists themselves. Some of the colonists, retaining a high venera- 
tion for the ritual of the church oi England, refused to join the colonial 
state establishment, and assembled separately to worship : Endicott 
called before him two of the principal offenders, expe'iled them from 
the colony, and sent them home in the first ships returning to England 

7. The government of the colony was soon transferred to America, 
and vested in those members of the company who should reside there. 
John Winthrop was appointed governor, and Thomas Dudley deputy 
governor, with eighteen assistants. In the course of the next year, 
1,630, fifteen hundred persons arrived in Massachusetts from England, 
amongst whom were several distinguished families, some of them in 
easy, and others in affluent circumstances ; and Boston, Charlestown, 
Dorchester, Roxbury, and other towns, were settled. 

8. The first general court, held at Charlestown, ventured to deviate 
from their charter in a matter of great moment : a law was passed, 
declaring that none should be freemen, or be entitled to any share in 
the government, except those who had been received as members of 

O o 5* 



434 UNITED STATES 

the church. The fanatica, spirit continued to increase. A miniate! 
of Salem, named Roger Williams, having 1 conceived an aversion to 
the cross of St. George, a symbol in the English standard, declaimed 
against it with great vehemence, as a relic of superstition ; and Endi- 
cott, in a transport of zeal, cut out the cross from the ensign displayed 
before the governor's gate. This frivolous matter divided the colony ; 
but the matter was at length compromised by retaining the cross in 
the ensigns of forts and vessels, and erasing it from the colours of the 
nilitia. 

9. In 1,636, Williams was banished from Salem ; and, accompanied 
by many of his hearers, the exile went south, purchased a tract of 
land of the natives, to which he gave the name of Providence ; and a 
Mr. Coddington, with seventy-six others, exiled from Boston, bought 
a fertile island on Narraganset. bay, that acquired the name of Rhode- 
Island. Mr. Coddington embraced the sentiments of the Quakers, or 
Friends ;< he received a charter from the British .parliament, m' which 
it was ordered, that " none were ever to be molested for any difference 
of opinion in religious matters :'"' yet, the very first assembly conven- 
ed under this authority, excluded Roman catholics from voting at 
elections, and from every office in the government ! 

10. To similar causes the state of Connecticut is indebted for its 
origin, Mr. Hooker, a favourite minister of Massachusetts, with 
about one hundred families, after a fatiguing march, settled on the 
western side of the river Connecticut, and laid the foundation of Hart- 
ford, Springfield, and Weathersfield. Their right to this territory 
was disputed by the Dutch, who had settled at the mouth of the 
Hudson, and by the lords Saj T -and-Seal and Brook, who had com- 
menced the settlement called Say-Brook. The Dutch were soon ex- 
pelled ; and the others uniting with the colony, all were incorporated 
by a royal charter 

11. New-Hampshire was first settled in the spring of 1,623, under 
the patronage of sir Ferdinando Gorges, captain John Mason, and 
several others, who sent over David Thompson, a Scot, Edward and 
William Hilton, and a number of people,, furnished with the requisite 
supplies. One company landed at a place called Little Harbour : the 
others settled at Dover. Mr. Wheelwright, a clergyman banished from 
Massachusetts, founded Exeter, in 1 ,638. 

12. Maine was not permanently settled until 1,635. Gorges ob- 
tained a grant of this territory, which remained under its own govern- 
ment until 1,652, when its soil and jurisdiction, as far as the middle of 
Casco bay, was claimed by Massachusetts. 

13. The mutual hostility of the English and Indians commenced 
with the first settlement; but it was not until the year 1,637, that a 
systematic warfare was begun. The Pequods, who brought into the 
field more than a thousand warriors, were exterminated in a few 
months by the combined troops of Massachusetts and Connecticut. 
In the night, the Pequods were attacked, near the head of Mistic, by 
the Connecticut troops and Narraganset Indians, commanded by cap- 
tain Mason : in a few moments* five or six hundred lay gasping in 
their blood, or were silent in the arms of death. M The darkness, of 
the forest," observes a New-England author, ''the blaze of the 
dwellings, the ghastly looks of the dead, the groans of the dying, the 
shrieks of the women and children, the yells of the friendly savages, 
presented a scene of sublimity and terror indescribably dreadful." 

14. In 1,643, an alliance for mutual defence was formed between the 
New-England colonies, excepting Rhode-Island, which Massachusetts 



UNITED STATES. 435 

was unwilling to admit. This alliance continued until the charters 
were annulled by James the second. 

15. Up to 1,638, twenty-one thousand British subjects had settled 
in New-England ; and the country had begun to extend the fisheries, 
and to export corn and lumber to the West Indies. In 1,656, the per- 
secution of the Quakers was at its height. A number of these inoffen- 
sive people having arrived in the Massachusetts colony, from England 
and Barbadoes^ and given offence to the clergy of the established 
church by the novelty of their religion, were imprisoned, and by the 
first opportunity sent away. A law was passed, which prohibited 
masters of ships from bringing Quakers into Massachusetts, and them- 
selves from coming there, under a graduated penalty, rising, in case 
of a return from banishment, to death. In consequence, several were 
hanged ! These proceedings are still the more reprehensible and re- 
markable, when contrasted with a previous declaration of their govern- 
ment, which tendered " hospitality and succour to all christian 
strangers, flying from wars, famine, or the tyranny of persecution." 
The anabaptists were also persecuted ; many were disfranchised, and 
some were banished. 

16. On the accession of James II., several of the New-England 
colonies were deprived of their charters ; but these, with various un- 
important modifications, were restored after the revolution. Sir 
William Phipps, a native of Maine, who rose to wealth and power in 
a manner the most extraordinary, was the first governor of Massachu- 
setts under the new charter. With a force of seven hundred men, he 
wrested from the French, L'Acadie, now called Nova Scotia. He 
afterwards made an unsuccessful attempt on Quebec, with the loss of 
one thousand men. The new charter, whilst it curtailed the liberties, 
extended the territory of Massachusetts ; to it were now annexed New 
Plymouth, Maine, and Nova Scotia, with all the country between the 
latter and the river St. Lawrence ; also Elizabeth islands, Martha's 
Vineyard, and Nantucket. The people, however, had just reason to 
complain that they no longer chose their governor, under whose control 
was the militia, and who levied taxes without their consent, and tried 
capital offences. 

17. About this time the pillars of society were shaken to the foun- 
dation, in and about Salem, by imaginary witchcraft. The delusion 
commenced at Salem village, now Danvers, in the family of Rev. 
Samuel Paris. Two young girls, one a daughter of Mr. Paris, aged 9; 
the other a niece, aged 11, were affected with singular nervous dis- 
orders, which, as they baffled the skill of the physician, were thought 
to proceed from an " evil hand." The children were believed oy 
the neighbours to be bewitched, and the belief, sanctioned by the 
opinion of the physician, became general throughout the vicinity. 
The more the girls were noticed and pitied, the more singular and 
extravagant was their conduct. Upon the advice of the neighbouring 
ministers, two or three private fasts were first kept ; afterwards a pub- 
lic one in the village and other congregations ; and finally, the general 
court appointed a fast through the colony. This course gave the 
occurrences a solemn aspect, and probably contributed to the public 
credulity, till the supposed witchcraft had extended throughout a great 
part of the county of Essex. The infatuation prevailed from March 
to October, 1,692, during which time twenty persons, men and women, 
were executed. It was then that suspicion roused from its lethargy ; 
condemnation ceased ; the accusers were silent ; those uiider sentence 
were reprieved, and afterwards pardoned. 



436 UNITED STATES. 

18. In the years 1,627 and '38, '63 and '70, New-England expe- 
rienced violent earthquakes. In the year 1,638, Harvard college, 
near Boston, the oldest seminary of learning in the United States, was 
founded. Four hundred pounds were voted to it by the general court ; 
and this sum was nearly doubled by a bequest from Mr. Jolm Harvard, 
a minister of Charlestown. This institution is now the most richly 
endowed of all the American colleges. Yale college, at New-Haven, 
was founded in 1,701. ten years after that of William and Mary, in 
Virginia ; and Dartmouth college, in New Hampshire, was founded 
in 1,769. The first printing press established in the British colonies 
was in 1,639, at Cambridge, superintended by Stephen Daye ; but 
erected chiefly; at the expense of Mr. Glover, an English clergyman, 
who died on his passage to America. 

19. Maryland, the first colony that, from its beginning, was directly 
governed as a province of the British empire, was founded by sir 
George Calvert, baron of Baltimore, in Ireland ; a Roman catholic 
nobleman, born in England. He first went to Virginia ; but meeting 
an unwelcome reception there, on account of his religion, he fixed his 
attention to the lands north of the Potomac, and obtained a grant of 
them from Charles 1. This country was called Maryland, in honour 
of the queen, Henrietta Maria. The religious toleration established 
by the charter, the first draft of which is said to have been written by 
sir George himself, is honourable to his memory. The grant was 
given to his eldest son, Cecilius, who succeeded to his titles ; but 
Leonard Calvert, brother to Cecilius, was the first governor, and made 
the first stand, at an island in the Potomac, which he named St. 
Clements, in 1,633. He made several purchases of the Indians, with 
whom he cultivated a constant friendship, as well on the Potomac, as 
on both shores of the Chesapeake. Never did any people enjoy more 
happiness than the inhabitants of Maryland. Whilst Virginia harass- 
ed all who dissented from the English church, and the northern colonies 
all who dissented from the puritans, the Roman catholics of Maryland 
a sect who in the old world never professed the doctrine of toleration, 
received and protected their brethren of every christian church, and 

its population was rapidly increased. 

20. About the middle of the seventeenth century, some emigrants, 
chiefly from Virginia, began a settlement in the county of Albemarle , 
and soon afterwards, another establishment was commenced at cape 
Fear, by adventurers from Massachusetts. These were held together 
try the laws of nature, without any written code, for some time. But 
Charles II. compelled the colonists to become subservient to his rule, 

nd granted to lord Clarendon and others the tract of land which now 
composes North and South Carolina : perfect freedom in religion was 
granted in the charter. The first settlement was placed under the 
command of sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, who assigned 
his authority to Mr. Drummond. In 1,761, the proprietors extended 
their settlements to the banks of Ashley and Cooper rivers, where 
Charleston now stands ; and eventually this became the separate state 
of South Carolina. The culture of cotton commenced here in 1,700, 
and that of indigo in 1,748. 

21. New- York was first settled by the Dutch, and was by them 
held for about half a century. It was, howevej, claimed by England 
as the first discoverer. Peter Stuyvesant, the third and last Dutch 
governor, began his administration in 1,647, and was distinguished no 
less for his fidelity than his vigilance. In 1,664 the colony surrendered 
to the English ; and the whole territory now comprising New- York* 



UNITED STATES. 437 

New-Jersey, together with Pennsylvania, Delaware, and a part of 
Connecticut, was assigned by Charles II. to his brother the duke ot 
Fork. The Dutch inhabitants remained ; Stuyvesant retained his 
estate, and died in the colony. The country was governed by the 
duke's officers until 1,688 ; when representatives of the people were 
allowed a voice in the legislature. 

22. In 1,664, the duke of York sold that part of his grant now call- 
ed New-Jersey to lord Berkeley and sir George Carteret. It had 
previously been settled by Hollanders, Swedes, and Danes. The 
county of Bergen was the first inhabited ; and very soon the towns of 
Elizabeth, Newark, Middleton, and Shrewsbury were settled. The 
college, originally established at Newark, was, in 1,748, finally fixed 
at Princeton : its chief benefactor was governor Belcher. Among the 
governors of New-Jersey was the celebrated Barclay, author of the 
Apology for the Quakers, of v/hich sect a large number had establish- 
ed themselves there. 

23. Pennsylvania was fo jnded by William Penn, son of a distin- 
guished admiral of the same name. From principle this excellent 
man joined the Quakers, then an obscure and persecuted sect. As 
one ot the members, and a preacher, Penn was repeatedly imprisoned ; 
but he plead his own cause with great boldness, and procured his own 
acquittal from an independent jury who with himself were imprisoned 
until an unjust penalty was paid. In 1,681, he purchased of Charles 
the tract now called Pennsylvania, for an acquittance of sixteen thou- 
sand pounds due to his father ; and soon after, he obtained from the 
duke of York a conveyance of the town of New-Castle, with the 
countiy which now forms the state of Delaware. The first colony, 
who were chiefly of his own sect, began their settlement above the 
confluence of the Schuylkill and Delaware rivers. In August, 1,682, 
this amiable man embarked, with about two thousand emigrants, and 
in October, arrived in the Delaware. Besides his own people, he 
was aided in the first settlement by Swedes, Dutch, Finlanders, and 
other English. The first legislative assembly was held at Chester, at 
that time called Upland. Among the first laws was one which de- 
clared " that none, acknowledging one God, and living peaceably in 
society, should be molested for his opinions or his practice ; nor be 
compelled to frequent or maintain any ministry whatever." Philadel- 
phia was begun in 1,683 ; and in 1,699, it contained seven hundred 
nouses, and about four thousand inhabitants. During the first seventy 
years of this settlement, no instance occurred of the Indians killing 
unarmed people. The wise and good man, Penn, made every exer- 
tion and sacrifice to promote the peace and prosperity of his favourite 
colony ; and between the persecution he had to encounter in England 
and the difficulties in Pennsylvania, his life was^ a continued scene of 
vexation — his private fortune was materially injured by the advances 
he made — he was harassed by his creditors, and obliged to undergo a 
temporary deprivation of his personal liberty. He died in London, in 
1,718, leaving an inheritance to his children, ultimately of immense 
value, which they enjoyed until the revolution, when it was assigned 
to the commonwealth for an equitable sum of money. In the interval 
between 1,730 and the war of the revolution, in this state, there was a 
great influx of emigrants, principally from Germany and Ireland ; and 
these people early brought the useful arts and manufactures into Penn- 
sylvania. To the Germans, she is indebted for the spinning and 
weaving of linen and woollen cloths ; to the Irish, for various trades 
indispensable to useful agriculture. 

O o2 



1 



438 UNITED STATES, 

24. Delaware was first settled in 1,627, by the Swedes and Fin- 
landers, and the colony bore the name of New-Sweden. It was 
afterwards conquered by the Dutch from New- York, and remained 
subservient to that colony until it passed into the hands of the 
English. 

25. Georgia was the last settled of the thirteen colonies that re- 
volted from Britain. It received its name from George II. In 
November, 1,732, one hundred and sixteen persons embarked at 
Gravesend, under general Oglethorpe ; and early in the ensuing year 
arrived at Charleston. From this port they proceeded to their destin- 
ed territory, and laid the foundation of Savannah. The Spaniard 
laid claim to this territory, and made extensive preparations to attack 
it. But through the finesse of Oglethorpe in practising an innocent 
deception, their plans were defeated. For many years, this settle- 
ment languished from a variety of causes. General Oglethorpe was 
distinguished as a soldier, a' statesman, and a philanthropist. At the 
beginning of the American revolution, he was offered the command of 
the British army in America, but this from principle he declined. 
After the contest was decided, he died at the age of ninety-seven 
years, being the oldest general in the British service. 



SECTION IV. 

WAR WITH FRANCE, AND CONQUEST OF CANADA. DIS- 
PUTES WITH GREAT BRITAIN, AND WAR OF THE REVO- 
LUTION. 

1. Nearly coeval with the first English settlement at James Town, 
in Virginia, was the establishment of a French colony at Quebec, on 
the great river St. Lawrence. The question of boundary between 
England and France, had long been a subject of unavailing negotia- 
tion. France, beside having Canada in the north, had also discovered 
and settled on Mississippi in the south ; and in 1,753, she strove, by a 
military chain, the links of which were to be formed by outposts 
stretching along the Ohio and the lakes, to connect these two extrem- 
ities, and thus restrain the British colonists to a small territory on the 
Atlantic ocean, if not entirely expel them from the country. The 
question of jurisdiction remained to be decided by the sword. Re- 
peated complaints of violence having come to the. ears of the governor 
of Virginia, he determined to send a suitable person to the French 
commandant at fort Du Quesne, (now Pittsburgh,) demanding the 
reason of his hostile proceedings, and insisting that he should evacuate 
the fort which he had recently erected. For this arduous undertaking, 
George Washington, a major of militia, then little more than twenty- 
one years of age, offered his services. The execution of this task 
seems to have been accomplished with all that prudence and courage 
which were so eminently displayed by this hero in after life. A* 
imminent peril, being waylaid and fired at by Indians, he not only 
faithfully accomplished the errand on which he had been sent, bu* 
gained extensive information of the distances and bearings of places, 
and of the number, size, ana strength of nearly all the enemy's 
fortresses. 

2. The reply of the French commander brought matters to a crisiB ; 
and in 1,754 the Virginian assembly organized a regiment, to support 



UNITED STATES. 439 

the claims of the English over the territory in dispute : of thu regi- 
ment a Mr. Fry was appointed colonel, and the young Wash! igton 
lieutenant colonel. Colonel Fry dying, the command of the A'hole 
devolved on Washington. The French having been strongly rein- 
forced, Washington was obliged to fall back, was attacked in works 
which he had not time to complete, and, after a brave defence, was 
obliged to capitulate ; the enemy allowing him to march out with the 
honours of war, and to retire unmolested to the inhabited parts of 
Virginia. 

3. The next year, 1,755, general Braddock was sent from Europe 
to Virginia, with two regiments, where he was joined by as many 
provincials as made his force amount to twenty-two hundred. Braa- 
dock was a brave man, but lacked that courtesy which could conciliate 
the Americans, and that modesty which should profit from the knowl- 
edge of those w r ho better knew the ground over which he w r as to pass, 
and the mode of French and Indian warfare, than himself, He push- 
ed on incautiously, until, within a few miles of fort Du Quesne, he fell 
into an ambush of French and Indians. In a short time, Washington, 
who acted as aid to Braddock, and whose duty called him to be on 
horseback, was the only person mounted who was left alive, or not 
wounded. The van of the army was forced back, and the w T hole 
thrown into confusion. The slaughter was dreadful. Braddock was 
mortally wounded. What was remarkable, the provincial troops pre- 
served their order, and covered the retreat under Washington ; while 
the regulars broke their ranks, and could not be rallied. 

4. Three successive campaigns procured nothing but expense and 
disappointment to the English. With an inferior force, the French 
had succeeded in every campaign ; and gloomy apprehensions were 
entertained as to the destiny of the British colonies. But in 1,756, a 
change of ministry in England took place. William Pitt was placed 
at the helm. To despair, succeeded hope ; and to hope victory- 
Supplies were granted with liberality, and given without reluctance: 
soldiers enlisted freely, and fought with enthusiasm. In a short time, 
the French were dispossessed, not only of all the territories in dispute, 
but of Quebec, and her ancient province of Canada ; so that all which 
remained to her of her numerous settlements in North America, was 
New-Orleans, with a few plantations on the Mississippi. Full of 
youth and spirit, the gallant general Wolfe, who led the European and 
colonial troops to victory, fell before the walls of Quebec, in the 
moment of success. In 1,762, hostilities having raged nearly eight 
years, a general peace was concluded : France ceded Canada, and 
Spain relinquished, as the price of recovering Havana, which had 
been taken by the British, both the Floridas to Great Britain. 

5. Although the American colonies had principally contributed to 
the great extension of the power of Great Britain, co-operating with 
the vigilance of more than four hundred cruisers on the sea, and 
furnishing more than twenty-four thousand soldiers ; yet the latter re- 
garded her plantations as mere instruments in her hands. On the 
contraiy, the high sentiments of liberty and independence nurtured in 
the colonies from their local situation and habits, w r ere increased by 
the removal of hostile neighbours. Ideas favourable to independence 
increased ; and whilst combustible materials were collecting in the 
new world, a brand to enkindle them was preparing in the old. 

6. In 1,765, under the auspices of the minister, George Grenville, 
the obnoxious stamp act passed in the British parliament ; by which 
the instruments of writing in daily use were to be null and void, unless 



440 UNITED STATES. 

executed on paper or parchment stamped with a specific duty : law 
documents, leases, deeds, and indentures, newspapers and advertise- 
ments, almanacs and pamphlets, executed and printed in America- 
all must contribute to the British treasury. The bill did not pass 
without the decided opposition of patriots in the British legislature, 
who foretold the result, and who declared that, the colonies being 
planted by British oppression, and having assisted the mother country, 
that the mother had no claim on the child to derive from it a revenue. 
The bill did not take effect until seven months after its passage ; thus 
giving the colonists an opportunity of leisurely examining and viewing 
the subject on every side. They were struck with silent consterna- 
tion ; but the voice of opposition was first heard in Virginia. Patrick 
Henry, on the 20th of May, brought into the house of burgesses in 
that colony a number of resolutions, which were adopted, and which 
concluded with declaring, " That every individual, who, by speaking 
or acting, should asser 1 or maintain, that any person or body of men, 
except the genera, assembly of the province, had any right to impose 
taxation there, should be deemed an enemy to his majesty's colony." 
These resolutions were immediately disseminated through the other 
provinces ; the tongues and the pens of well-informed men laboured 
in the holy cause — the fire of liberty blazed forth from the press. The 
assembly of Massachusetts passed a resolution in favour of a continental 
congress, and fixed a day for its meeting at New- York, in October. 
The other colonies, with the exception of four, accepted this invita- 
tion, and assembled at the appointed place. Here they agreed on a 
declaration of their rights. There was, however, a considerable de* 
gree of timidity evinced in this congress. The boldest and most im- 
pressive arguments were offered by James Otis of Massachusetts. 

7. The time arrived for the act to take effect ; and the aversion to 
it was expressed in still stronger terms throughout the colonies. By a 
common consent, its provisions were disregarded, and business was 
conducted, in defiance of the parliament, as if no stamp act was in 
axistence : associations were formed against importing British manu- 
factures until the law should be repealed ; and lawyers were prohib- 
ited from instituting any action for money due to any inhabitant oi 
England. The spirited conduct of the colonists, affecting the interests 
of the British merchants, had the desired effect. Warm discussions 
took place in the British parliament ; and the ablest speakers in both 
houses denied the justice of taxing the colonies. The opposition 
could not be withstood ; and in March, 1,766, the law was repealed. 

8. Simultaneously, however, with repealing this act, the British 
parliament passed another, declaring that the British parliament had 
a right to make laws binding the colonies in all cases whatever ; and 
soon after another bill was passed, imposing in the colonies duties on 
glass, paper, painters' colours, and tea. The fire of opposition was 
now rekindled with additional ardour, by the same principle, exhibited 
in its new form. The best talents throughout the colonies were 
engaged, in the public prints and in pamphlets, to work up the public 
feeling against the arbitrary measures of the British parliament. New 
associations were formed to suspend the importation of British manu- 
factures. The Massachusetts assembly, having passed resolutions to 
this effect, drew forth the marked.di.spleasure of the crown ; and, on 
their refusal to cancel their resolutions, were dissolved. 

9. In 1,768, Mr. Hancock's sloop Liberty was seized at Boston, for 
not entering all the wines she had brought from Madeira : this inflamed 
the populace to a high degree of resentment. Soon afterwards, two 



UNITED STATES. 441 

British regiments, and some armed vessels, were sent to Boston, to 
assist the revenue officers. The parliament, encouraged by the ex- 
pectation of quelling the refractory by their arms, continued to dis- 
solve the opposing assemblies : but the colonies remained firm in their 
purposes. 

10. Lord North succeeded the duke of Grafton, as British premier 
in 1,770 ; and the act was repealed imposing a duty on glass, paper, 
and painters' colours ; but that on tea was retained. Some slight 

Krospect of allaying the difficulties succeeded. But on the second of 
[arch an affray took place in Boston, between a private soldier and 
an inhabitant. This was succeeded, in a few days afterwards, by a 
mob meeting a party of British soldiers under arms, who were dared 
to fire, and who at length did fire, and killed five persons. The cap- 
tain who commanded, and the troops who fired, were afterwards tried 
for murder, and acquitted. 

11. Things continued in this mode of partial irritation until 1,773, 
when the British East India company were authorized to export their 
tea to all places, free of duty. As this would enable them to sell that 
article cheaper in America, with the government exactions, than they 
had before sold it without them, it was confidently calculated that teas 
might be extensively disposed of in the colonies. Large consignments 
of tea were sent to various parts, and agents appointed for its disposal. 
The consignees, in several places, were compelled to relinquish their 
appointments. Popular vengeance prevented the landing at New- 
York or Philadelphia. In Boston it was otherwise. The tea for the 
supply of that port was consigned to the sons and particular friends of 
governor Hutchinson. The tea was landed by the strenuous exertions 
of the governor and consignees. But soon a party of men, dressed as 
Indians, boarded the tea ships, broke open the cargoes, and threw the 
contents into the sea. Enraged against the people of Boston, the par- 
liament resolved to take legislative vengeance on that devoted town. 
Disregarding the forms of the British constitution, by which none are 
to be punished without trial, they passed a bill, closing, in a commer- 
cial sense, its port : its custom house and trade were soon after re- 
moved to Salem. The charter of the colony was new modelled, so 
that the whole executive government was taken from the people, and 
the nomination to all important offices vested in the crown ; and it was 
enacted, that if any person was indicted for any capital offence com- 
mitted in aiding the magistrates, he might be sent to Great Britain or 
another colony for trial. Property, liberty, and life, were thus subject 
to ministerial caprice. The parliament went still further, and passed 
an act extending the boundaries of Canada, southward to the Ohio, 
westward, to the Mississippi, and northward, to the borders of the 
Hudson's bay company, assimilating its laws with the French, which 
dispensed with the trial by jury, and rendering the inhabitants passive 
agents in the hands of power. 

12. The flame was now kindled in every breast ; and associations- 
were formed, and committees of correspondence were established, 
which produced a unity of thought and action throughout the colonies. 
General Gage, the British commander-in-chief, arrived in Boston, in 
1,774, with more troops, with the avowed intention of dragooning the 
refractory Bostonians into compliance. A general sympathy was 
excited for the suffering inhabitants of Boston : addresses poured in 
from all quarters ; Marblehead offered to the Boston merchants the 
use of her wharves, and Salem refused to adopt the trade, the offer oi 
.^iakh had been proffered as a temptation to her cupidity. Affairs 

M 



442 UNITED STATES. 

rapidly approached a crisis. The preparations foi offence and defence, 
induced general Gage to fortify Boston, and to seize on the powder 
lodged at the arsenal at Charlestown. 

13. In September, deputies from most of the colonies met in con- 
gress, at Philadelphia. These delegates approved of the conduct of 
the people of Massachusetts ; wrote a letter to general Gage ; pub- 
lished a declaration of rights ; formed an association not to import or 
use British goods ; sent a petition to the king of Great Britain ; an 
address to the inhabitants of that kingdom ; another to the inhabitants 
of Canada ; and another to the inhabitants of the colonies. In the 
beginning of the next year, (1,775,) was passed the fishery bill, by 
which the northern colonies were forbidden to fish on the banks ot 
Newfoundland for a certain time. This bore hard upon the commerce 
of these colonies, which was in a great measure supported by the 
fishery. 

14. Soon after, another bill was passed, which restrained the trade 
of the middle and southern colonies to Great Britain, Ireland, and the 
West Indies, except under certain conditions. These repeated acts 
of oppression on the part of Great Britain, alienated the affections of 
America from her parent and sovereign, and produced a combined 
opposition to the whole system of taxation. Preparations began to be 
made to oppose by force the execution of these acts of parliament. 
The militia of the country were trained to the use of arms — great 
encouragement was given to the manufacture of gunpowder, and 
measures were taken to obtain all kinds of military stores. 

15. In Februaiy, colonel Leslie was sent with a detachment of 
troops from Boston, to take possession of some cannon at Salem. But 
the people had intelligence of the design — took up the drawbridge in 
that town, and prevented the troops from passing, until the cannon 
were secured ; so that the expedition failed. In April, colonel Smith 
and major Pitcairn were sent with a body of troops, to destroy the 
military stores which had been collected at Concord, about twenty 
miles from Boston. At Lexington the militia were collected on a 
green, to oppose the incursion of the British forces. These were fired 
upon by the British troops, and eight men killed on the spot. 

16. The militia were dispersed, and the troops proceeded to Con- 
cord ; where they destroyed a few stores. But on their return they 
were incessantly harassed by the Americans, who, inflamed with just 
resentment, fired upon them from houses and fences, and pursued them 
to Boston. Here was spilt the first blood in the war which severed 
America from the British empire. Lexington opened the first scene 
of the great drama, which, in its progress, exhibited the most illustri- 
ous characters and events, and closed with a revolution, equally 
glorious for the actors, and important in its consequences to the human 
race. This battle loused all America. The militia collected from 
ail quarters, and Boston was in a few days besieged by twenty thou- 
sand men. A stop was put to all intercourse between the town and 
country, and the inhabitants were reduced to great want of provisions. 
General Gage promised to let the people depart, if they would deliver 
up their arms. The people complied ; b«t when the general had 
obtained their arms, the perfidious wretch refused to let the people go 

17. In the mean time, a small number of men, under the command 
of colonel Allen and colonel Easton, without any public orders, sur- 
prised and took the British garrison at Ticonderoga, without the loss 
of a man. 

18. In June following, our troops attempted to fortify Bunker's hill 



UNITED STATES. 443 

which lies in Charlestown, and but a mile and a half from Boston. 
They had, during the night, thrown up a small breastwork, which 
sheltered them from the fire of the British cannon. But the next 
morning, the British army was sent to drive them from the hill ; and 
landing under cover of their cannon, they set fire to Charlestown, which 
was consumed, and marched to attack our troops in the entrenchments. 
A severe engagement ensued, in which the British suffered a very 
great loss, both of officers and privates. They were repulsed at first, 
and thrown into disorder ; but they finally carried the fortification 
with the point of the bayonet. The Americans suffered a small loss 
compared with the British ; but the death of the brave general Warren, 
who fell in the action, a martyr to the cause of his country, was severe- 
ly felt and universally lamented. 

19. About this time, the continental congress appointed George 
Washington, Esq. to the chief command of the continental army, 
This gentleman had been a distinguished and successful officer in the 
preceding war, and he seemed destined by Heaven to be the saviour 
of his country. He accepted the appointment with a diffidence which 
was a proof of his prudence and his greatness. He refused any pay 
for eight years' laborious and arduous service ; and by his matchless 
skill, fortitude, and perseverance, conducted America, through inde- 
scribable difficulties, to independence and peace. While true merit is 
esteemed, or virtue honoured, mankind will never cease to revere the 
memory of this hero ; and while gratitude remains in the human 
breast, the praises of Washington shall dwell on every American 
tongue 

20. General Washington, with other officers appointed by congress, 
arrived at Cambridge, and took command of the American army in 
July. From this time, the affairs of America began to assume the 
appearance of a regular and general opposition to the forces of Great 
Britain. 

21. In autumn, a body of troops, under the command of general 
Montgomery, besieged and took the garrison at St. John's, which 
commands the entrance into Canada. The prisoners amounted to 
about seven hundred. General Montgomery pursued his success, and 
took Montreal, and designed to push his victories to Quebec. A body 
of troops, commanded by Arnold, was ordered to march to Canada, 
by the river Kennebec, and through the wilderness. After suffering 
every hardship, and the most distressing hunger, they arrived in 
Canada, and were joined by general Montgomery, before Quebec. 
This city, which was commanded by governor Carleton, was imme- 
diately besieged. But there being little hope of taking the town by 
a siege, it was determined to storm it. The attack was made on the 
last day of December, but proved unsuccessful, and fatal to the brave 
general, who, with his aid, was killed in attempting to scale the walls. 
Of the three divisions which attacked the town, one only entered, and 
that was compelled to surrender to superior force. Alter this defeat, 
Arnold, who now commanded the troops, continued some months before 
Quebec, although his troops suffered incredibly by cold and sickness. 
But the next spring the Americans were obliged to retreat from Canada. 

22. About this time the large and flourishing town of Norfolk, in 
Virginia, was wantonly burnt by order of lord Dunmore, the royal 
governor. General Gage went to England in September, and was 
succeeded in command by general Howe. Falmouth, a considerable 
town in the province of Maine, in Massachusetts, shared the fate of 
Norfolk ; being laid in ashes by order of the British admiral. 



444 UNITED STATES. 

23. The British king entered into treaties with some of the German 
princes for about seventeen thousand men, who were to be sent to 
America the next year, to assist, in subduing the colonies. The British 
parliament also passed an act, forbidding all intercourse with America ; 
and while they repealed the Boston port and fishery bills, they declar- 
ed all American property on the high seas forfeited to the captors. 
This act induced congress to change the mode of carrying on the war ; 
and measures were taken to annoy the enemy in Boston. For this 

Eurpose, batteries were cpened on several hills, from whence shot and 
ombs were thrown into the town. But the batteries which were 
opened on Dorchester point had the best effect, and soon obliged, 
general Howe to abandon the town. In March, 1,776, the British 
troops embarked for Halifax, and general Washington entered the 
town in triumph. 

24. In the ensuing summer, a small squadron of ships, under the 
command, of sir Peter Parker, and a body of troops under the gene- 
rals Clinton and Cornvvallis, attempted to take Charleston, the capital 
of South Carolina. The ships made a violent attack upon the fort on 
Sullivan's island, but were repulsed with great loss, and the expedition 
was abandoned. 

25. In July, congress published their declaration of independence, 
which for ever separated America from Great Britain. This great 
event took place two hundred and eighty-four years after the first dis- 
covery of America by Columbus — one hundred and seventy from the 
first effectual settlements in Virginia — and one hundred and fifty-six 
from the first settlement of Plymouth in Massachusetts, which were 
the earliest English settlements in America. Just after this declara- 
Tinn, general Howe, with a powerful force, arrived near New- York, 
arid landed the troops upon Staten Island. General Washington was 
in New-York, with about thirteen thousand men, encamped either in 
the city, or in the neighbouring fortifications. 

26. The operations of the British began by the action on Long 
Island, in the month of August. The Americans were defeated, and 
general Sullivan and lord Sterling, with a large body of men, were 
made prisoners. The night after the engagement, a retreat was 
ordered, and executed with such silence, that the Americans left the 
island without alarming their enemies, and without loss. In Septem- 
ber, the city of New- York was abandoned by the American army, and 
taken by the British. 

27. In November, fort Washington, on York Island, was taken, and 
more than two thousand men made prisoners. Fort Lee, opposite to 
fort Washington, on the Jersey shore, was soon after taken, but the 
garrison escaped. About the same time, general Clinton was sent, 
with a body of troops, to take possession of Rhode Island, and suc- 
ceeded. ^ In addition to all these losses and defeats, the American 
army suffered by desertion, and more by sickness, which was epidemic, 
and very mortal. 

> 28. The northern army, at Ticonderoga, was in a disagreeable 
situation, particularly after the battle on lake Champlain, in which the 
American force, consisting of a few light vessels, under the command 
of Arnold and general Waterbury, was totally dispersed. But general 
Carleton, instead of pursuing his victory, landed at Crown Point, re- 
connoitered our posts at Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, and 
returned to winter quarters in Canada. 

( 29. At the close of this year, the American army was dwindled to a 
'.andful of men ; and general Lee was taken prisoner in New-Jersey, 



UNITED STATES. 445 

Far fiom being discouraged at these losses, congress took measures to 
raise and establish an army. In this critical situation, general Wash- 
ington surprised and took a large body of Hessians, who were canton- 
ed at Trenton ; and soon after, another body of the British troops, at 
Princeton. The address in planning and executing these enterprises, 
reflected the highest honour on the commander, and the success revive 
ed the desponding hopes of America. The loss of general Mercer, a 
gallant officer, at Princeton, was the principal circumstance that allay 
ed the joy of victory. 

30. The following year, (1,777,) was distinguished by very memo- 
rable events in favour of America. On the opening of the campaign, 
governor Tryon was sent, with a body of troops, to destroy the stores 
at Danbury, in Connecticut. This plan was executed, and the town 
mostly burnt. The enemy suffered in their retreat, and the Americans 
lost general Wooster, a brave and experienced officer. General Pres- 
cott was taken from his quarters on Rhode Island, by the address and 
enterprise of colonel Barton, and conveyed prisoner to the continent. 
General Burgoyne, who commanded the northern British army, took 
possession of Ticonderoga, which had been abandoned by the Ameri- 
cans. He pushed his successes, crossed lake George, and encamped 
upon the banks of the Hudson, near Saratoga. His progress was 
however checked by the defeat of colonel Baum, near Bennington, in 
which the undisciplined militia of Vermont, under general Stark, dis- 
played unexampled bravery, and captured almost the whole detach- 
ment. The militia assembled from all parts of New-England, 1o stop 
the progress of general Burgoyne. These, with the regular troops, 
formed a respectable army, commanded by general Gates. After 
two severe actions, in which the generals Lincoln and Arnold, behaved 
with uncommon gallantly, and were wounded, general Burgoyne found 
himself enclosed with brave troops, and was forced to surrender his 
whole army, amounting to seven thousand men, into the hands of the 
Americans. This happened in October. This event diffused a uni- 
versal joy over America, and laid a foundation for the treaty with 
France. 

31. But before these transactions, the main body of the British 
forces had embarked at New- York, sailed up the Chesapeake, and 
landed at the head of Elk river. The army soon began their march 
for Philadelphia. General Washington had determined to oppose 
them, and for this purpose made a stand upon the heights near Brandy- 
wine creek. Here the armies engaged, and the Americans were over • 
powered, and suffered great loss. The enemy soon pursued their 
march, and took possession of Philadelphia towards the close of Sep- 
tember. Not long after, the two armies were again engaged at Ger- 
mantown, and in the beginning of the action the Americans had the 
advantage ; but by some unlucky accident, the fortune of the day 
was turned in favour of the British. Both sides suffered considerable 
loss ; on the side of the Americans was general Nash. 

32. In an attack upon the forts at Mud Island and Red Bank, the 
Hessians were unsuccessful, and their commander, colonel Donop, 
killed. The British also lost the Augusta, a ship of the line. But 
the forts were afterwards taken, and the navigation of the Delaware 
opened. General Washington was reinforced with part of the troops 
which had composed the northern army, under general Gates ; and 
Doth armies retired to winter quarters. 

33. In October, the same month in which general Burgoyne waa 
taken at Saratoga, general Vaughan, with a small fleet, sailed up 

Pp 



446 UNITED STATES, 

Hudson's river, and wantonly burnt Kingston, a beautiful Dutch settle- 
ment, on the west side of the river. 

34. The beginning of the next year (1,778) was distinguished by a 
treaty of alliance between France and America ; by which we obtain- 
ed a powerful ally. When the English ministry were informed that 
this treaty was on foot, they despatched commissioners to America, 
to attempt a reconciliation. But America would not now accept their 
offers. Early in the spring, count de Estaing, with a fleet of fifteen 
sail of the line, was sent by the court of France to assist America. 

35. General Howe left the army, and returned to England ; the 
command then devolved upon sir Henry Clinton. In June, the British 
army left Philadelphia, and marched for New- York. On their march 
they were much annoyed by the Americans ; and at Monmouth a very 
regular action took place between part of the armies ; the enemy were 
repulsed with great loss ; and had general Lee obeyed his orders, a 
signal victory must have been obtained. General Lee, for his ill con- 
duct that day, was suspended, and was never afterwards permitted to 
join the army. 

36. In August, general Sullivan, with a large body of troops, at- 
tempted to take possession of Rhode Island, but did not succeed 
Soon after, the stores and shipping at Bedford, in Massachusetts, were 
burnt by a party of British troops. The same year, Savannah, the 
capital of Georgia, was taken by the British, under the command of 
colonel Campbell. In the following year, (l,77&,) general Lincoln 
was appointed to the command of the southern army. Governor 
Trvon and sir George Collier made an incursion into Connecticut, 
ana burnt, with wanton barbarity, the towns of Fairfield and Norwalk. 

37. But the American arms were crowned with success in a bold 
attack upon Stony Point, which was surprised and taken by general 
Wayne, in the night of the 15th of July. Five hundred men were 
made prisoners, with a small loss on either side. A party of British 
forces attempted, this summer, to build a fort on Penobscot river, for 
the purpose of cutting timber in the neighbouring forests. A plan was. 
laid, by Massachusetts, to dislodge them, and a considerable fleet col- 
lected for the purpose. But the plan failed of success, and the whole 
marine lorce fell into the hands of the British, except some vessels, 
which were burnt by the Americans themselves. 

38. In October, general Lincoln and count de Estaing made an 
assault upon Savannah ; but they were repulsed with considerable 
loss. In this action, the celebrated Polish count Polaski, who had ac- 
quired fhe reputation of a brave soldier, was mortally wounded. ^ In 
tliis summer, general Sullivan marched, with a body of troops, into 
the Indian country, and burnt and destroyed all their provisions and 
settlements that iell in his way. 

39. On the opening of the campaign, the next year, (1,780,) the 
British troops left Rhode Island. An expedition under general Clin- 
ton and lord Cornwallis, Avas undertaken against Charleston, South 
Carolina, where general Lincoln commanded. This town, after a close 
siege of about six weeks, was surrendered to the British commander ; 
and general Lincoln, and the whole American garrison, were made 
prisoners. 

40. General Gates was appointed to the command in the southern 
department, and another army collected. In August, lord Cornwallis 
attacked the American troops at Camden, in South Carolina, and rout- 
ed them with considerable loss. He afterwards marched through the 
southern states, and supposed them entirely subdued. The same 



UNITED STATES. 447 

summer, the British troops made frequent incursions from New- York 
into the Jerseys ; ravaging and plundering the country. In some of 
these descents, the Rev. Mr. Caldwell, a respectable clergyman and 
warm patriot, and his lady, were inhumanly murdered by the savage 
soldiery. 

41. In July, a French fleet, under Monsieur de Ternay, with a 
body of land forces, commanded by count de Rochambeau, arrived at 
Rhode Inland, to the great joy of the Americans. 

42. This year was also distinguished by the infamous treason of 
Arnold. General Washington having seme business to transact at 
Weathersfield, in Connecticut, left Arnold to command the important 
post of West Point, which guards a pass in Hudson's river, about sixty 
miles from New-York. Arnold's conduct in the city of Philadelphia, 
the preceding winter, had been censured, and the treatment he receiv- 
ed in consequence had given him offence. He determined to have 
revenge ; and for this purpose he entered into a negotiation with sir 
Henry Clinton, to deliver West Point and the army into the hands of 
the British. While general Washington was absent, he dismounted 
the cannon in some of the forts, and took other steps to render the 
taking of the post easy for the enemy. But by a providential discov- 
ery, the whole plan was defeated. Major Andre, aid to general 
Clinton, a brave officer, who had been up the river as a spy, to con- 
cert the plan of operations with Arnold, was taken, condemned by a 
court-martial, and executed. Arnold made his escape by getting on 
board the Vulture, a British vessel which lay in the river. His con- 
duct has stamped him with infamy, and, like all traitors, he is despised 
by all mankind. General Washington arrived in camp just after 
Arnold had made his escape, and restored order in the garrison. 

43. After the defeat of general Gates, in Carolina, general Green 
was appointed to the command in the southern department. From 
this period, things in this quarter wore a more favourable aspect. 
Colonel Tarleton, the active commander of the British legion, was 
defeated by general Morgan, the intrepid commander of the riflemen. 
After a variety of movements, the two armies met at Guilford, in North 
Carolina. Here was one of the best fought actions during the war. 
General Greene and lord Cornwallis exerted themselves, at the head 
of their respective armies, and, although the Americans were obliged 
to retire from the field of battle, yet the British army suffered an im- 
mense loss, and could not pursue the victory. This action happened 
on the 15th of March, 1,781. 

44. In the spring, Arnold, who was made a brigadier-general in the 
British service, with a small number of troops, sailed for Virginia, and 
plundered the country. This called the attention of the French fleet 
to that quarter, and a naval engagement took place, between the 
English and French, in which some of the English ships were much 
damaged, and one entirely disabled. 

45. After the battle at Guilford, general Greene moved towards 
South Carolina, to drive the British from their posts in that state. 
Here lord Rawdon obtained an inconsiderable advantage over the 
Americans, near Camden. But general Greene more than recovered 
this disadvantage, by the brilliant and successful action at the Eutaw 
springs ; where general Marion distinguished himself, and the brave 
colonel Washington was wounded and taken prisoner. Lord Corn- 
wallis finding general Greene successful in Carolina, marched to Vir- 
ginia, collected his forces, and fortified himself in Yorktown. In the 
mean time, Arnold made an incursion into Connecticut, burnt a part 



448 UNITED STATES. 

of New-London, took fort Griswold by storm, and put the garrison to 
the sword. The garrison consisted chiefly of men suddenly collected 
from the little town of Groton, which, by the savage cruelty of the 
British officer who commanded the attack, lost, in one hour, almost 
all its heads of families. The brave colonel Ledyard, who command- 
ed the fort, was slain with his own sword, after he had surrendered. 

46. The marquis de la Fayette, the brave and generous nobleman, 
whose services command the gratitude of every American, had been 
despatched from the main army to watch the motions of lord Corn- 
.vallis, in Virginia. About the last of August, count de Grasse arrived 
with a large fleet in the Chesapeake, and blocked up the British troops 
at Yorktown. Admiral Greaves, with a British fleet, appeared *>ff the 
Capes, and an action succeeded, but it was not decisive. General 
Washington had, before this time, moved the main body of his army, 
together with the French troops, to the southward ; and, as soon as he 
heard of the arrival of the French fleet in the Chesapeake, he made 
rapid marches to the head of the Elk, where embarking, the troops 
soon arrived at Yorktown. A close siege immediately commenced, 
and was carried on with such vigour by the combined forces of Amer- 
ica and France, that lord Cornwallis was obliged to surrender. This 
glorious event, which took place on the 19th of October, 1,781, de- 
cided the contest in favour of America, and laid the foundation of a 
general peace. A few months after the surrender of Cornwallis, the 
British evacuated all their posts in South Carolina and Georgia, and 
retired to the main army in New- York. 

47. The next spring (l,782) sir Guy Carlton arrived in New- York, 
and took command of the British army in America. Immediately 
after his arrival, he acquainted general Washington and congress, that 
negotiations for a peace had been commenced at Paris. On the 30th 
of November, 1,782, the provisional articles of peace were signed at 
Paris, by which Great Britain acknowledged the independence and 
sovereignty of the United States of America. 

48. Thus ended a long and arduous conflict, in which Great Britain 
expended near a hundred millions of money, with a hundred thousand 
lives, and won nothing. America endured every cruelty and distress 
fiom her enemies ; lost many lives, and much treasure— but delivered 
herself from a foreign dominion, and gained a rank among the nations 
of the earth. 



SECTION V. 

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE STATE AND NATIONAL GOVERN- 
MENTS. WARS WITH TRIPOLI AND THE INDIANS, &c. 

1. The important revolution, as regarding the dependance of the 
colonies on Great Britain, required a corresponding alteration in then 
governments. Conventions were assembled in the several states, 
which formed new constitutions, agreeably to the strictest principles 
of republicanism ; retaining whatever was desirable in the original 
institutions, and at the same time providing additional security against 
tyranny or corruption. The statute and common laws of England, 
formerly observed in the provincial courts of justice, remainin prac- 
tice as before. The inestimable privilege, of British origin, a trial 
by J UI 7 ? the freedom of the press, with the additional right, in case 
of prosecuting for a libel, of giving the truth in evidence ; are de- 



UNITED STATES. 449 

dared to be fundamental principles. The governments resemble, in 
their principal organization, the frame of the new federal constitution ; 
they consist of three branches — a governor, a senate, and a lower 
house of representatives. The elections recur frequently, in which, 
in most of the states, every freeman has a right to participate. 

2. As yet the general government was not established on a solid 
foundation. The articles of union, formed under! lie pressure of com- 
mon danger, were found inadequate to the efficient management of the 
same country in the selfish periods of peace and security. No efficient 
fund had been provided to pay the interest of the national debt, and 
the public securities fell to one tenth of their nominal value. An open 
resistance to the government was made in Massachusetts, headed by a 
person of the name of Shays. Danger increased, and the friends of 
rational liberty became alarmed. 

3. The Virginia legislature, in 1,787, in accordance with a motion 
made by James Madison, made a proposal to the other states to meet 
in convention for the purpose of digesting a system of government 
equal to the exigencies of the union. The convention met at Phila- 
delphia, May 25, 1,787, and chose general Washington president; 
and, after deliberating with closed doors until the 17th of September, 
agreed on a new plan of national government : this was afterwards 
ratified by the several states. This new constitution not only fixes the 
national government on a republican basis, but guaranties to each state 
of the family a republican form of government, and binds the whole 
to protect each against foreign invasion or domestic violence. Gen- 
eral Washington was unanimously chosen first president under the new 
constitution. March 4, 1,789, the first congress under the new consti- 
tution assembled at New- York ; and, in 1,790, duties were levied on 
imported merchandise, to replenish an empty treasury. The public 
debt incurred during the revolutionary war was funded, and brought 
at once to its par value. A national bank was established, not how- 
ever without opposition. An excise duty laid on domestic spirits, pro- 
duced an insurrection in the western part of Pennsylvania ; but the 
laws were executed, and on the intervention of an armed force, tran- 
quillity was restored without bloodshed. 

4. Two new states were admitted into the confederacy, viz. : Ver- 
mont in 1,791, and Kentucky in 1,792. A war with the Creek Indians, 
whose fighting men amounted to about six hundred, some time existed 
on the frontier of Georgia : peace, however, was restored there in 
1,790. A sanguinary warfare, with various success, was for some time 
kept up with the north-western Indians. In 1,791, general Harmar 
was defeated, in the Ohio country, with the loss of three hundred and 
sixty men killed. General St. Clair, at the head of two thousand 
militia and regulars, was subsequently worsted, near the Indian villages 
on the Miami, with the loss of thirty-eight officers, and nearly six 
hundred privates. St. Clair was succeeded by general Wayne, who 
completely louted the savage foe, and drove the Indians out of the 
countiy. In the year after, Wayne negotiated a satisfactory treaty 
of peace with the hostile Indians ; and at this time commenced a 
humane system f or ameliorating their condition. 

5. Whilst the United States were employed in quelling the refrac- 
tory, and restraining the inroads of a subtle enemy within their own 
bosom, new sources of difficulty discovered themselves in the great 
convulsions of Europe. The French revolution had commenced, and 
that nation was under the wild misrule of its directory. Claims for 
assistance were made on the United States- Genet, the French envoy, 

Pp2 67 



450 UNITED STATES. 

having arrived at Charleston, undertook to authorize the arming of 
vessels in that port, and the enlisting of men ; giving commissions, in 
the name of the French government, to cruise at sea, and commit hos- 
tilities on land, against nations with whom the United States were at 
peace. The British minister remonstrated. The president issued 
orders for defeating the unwarrantable interference of the French am- 
bassador. Genet threatened an appeal to the people, but was soon 
after recalled. Afterwards, the French directory authorized the in- 
discriminate capture of all vessels sailing under the flag of the United 
States ; and ordered the American envoys to leave France. Two 
severe actions occurred in the West Indies, between the American 
frigate Constellation, of thirty-eight guns, and the French frigate 
L'Insurgente, of forty, and the same frigate and the La Vengeance, of 
fifty guns, in which L'Insurgente was captured, and La Vengeance 
worsted. 

6. In 1,797, John, Adams was chosen president ; and in the year 
after, Washington was called to the head of the army, in the prospect 
of a protracted war with France. But speedily after the overthrow 
of the directory government, all the disputes between France and the 
United States were amicably arranged. 

7. Although, since the definitive treaty of Paris, there occurred no 
open hostilities between England and the United States, yet they were 
far from being on terms of amity and conciliation. On various pre- 
texts, the English retained possession of the forts on the south side of 
the lakes, forming the northern boundary of the United States ; and 
irritation was continually excited by the English insisting on the right 
of searching American ships for enemy's property. Mr. Jay was de- 
puted envoy to London, and negotiated a treaty, in 1,795, which set- 
tled the differences between the two nations, but the terms of which 
were much opposed in the United States. 

8. December 14, 1,799, died the illustrious Washington, of an in- 
flammatory sore throat and fever, contracted from a slight exposure to 
the wet weather, after an illness of only about twenty-four hours. 

9. The seat of government had been removed from New- York (o 
Philadelphia, both of which places being deemed inconvenient, pro- 
vision was made, at the second session after the formation of govern- 
ment, for the removal of the government to a district on the Potomac, 
which was ceded to the United States by Virginia and Maryland ; and, 
in 1,800, the public offices were removed to the infant capital, ob 
which magnificent buildings had been erected. This city bears the 
name of Washington, and the district that of Columbia. 

10. The war with Tripoli commenced in 1,801, by an engagement 
of the Enterprise, captain Sterrett, with a Tripolitan corsair, offMalta, 
in which the American was victorious. Commodore Murray, the 
following year, in the frigate Constellation, was attacked, while cruis- 
ing off Tripoli, by a formidable number of gun boats, but obliged 
them to retire in confusion. In 1,803, the Philadelphia frigate, cap 
tain Bainbridge, ran upon a rock, in the very jaws of the pirates ; was 
obliged to strike, and her officers and crew, amounting to three hun- 
dred, were made prisoners. This vessel was, however, recaptured 
and burnt, while lying in the harbour of Tripoli, February 16, 1,804, 
by captain Stephen Decatur, jr., and seventy men — one of the most 
daring and gallant exploits on record. From the 3d to the 29th of 
August following, commodore Preble made three general attacks upon 
the Tripolitan batteries. The barbarian enemy continued to treat 
the American prisoners with the most atrocious cruelty. Another 



UNITED STATES. 461 

expedient was tried by the American government. General Eaton 
was despatched to co-operate with Hamet, who had been driven from 
the government of Tripoli by the usurpation of his brother. Travel- 
ling to Egypt, he found the exile, and proceeding fifty-two days 
through a hideous desert, he arrived before Derne, a city in the 
regency of Tripoli, and carried the town at the point of the bayonet. 
Twice did the enemy attempt to retake the town ; but, against fearful 
odds, they were repulsed by Eaton. This brought the reigning 
bashaw to terms ; a peace was concluded by colonel Lear, and the 
prisoners long detained in captivity, were released. 

11. Tennessee in 1,796, and Ohio in 1,800, were added to the states 
of the union. In 1,803, Louisiana was purchased from the French 
government, for the sum of fifteen millions of dollars ; and in 1,812, a 

Sortion of this extended territory was erected into a state by that name, 
ly this cession, the United States have acquired a territory of vast 
magnitude, and extraordinary fertility, from which new states will 
continue to be incorporated. 

12. In the autumn of 1,806, Aaron Burr was detected in an enter- 
prise of great moment, the separation of the western states from the 
union, and the subjugation of New-Orleans : his plan was defeated by 
the vigilance of the government ; Burr was arrested on a charge of 
high treason — but no overt act being proved on him, he was released. 



SECTION VI. 
WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN, &c. 

1 We come now to treat of those interesting events which brought 
on a second contest between Great Britain and the United States. 
The custom of searching American vessels on the ocean, and impress- 
ing from them British seamen, had long been practised by the English. 
But hitherto the custom had been confined to private vessels : now, it 
was extended in some instances to public armed vessels. Four seamen, 
deserters from the British navy, were reported to have entered the 
service of the United States, and to have been received on board the 
frigate Chesapeake, at the time lying at Hampton roads, preparing for 
the Mediterranean. Admiral Berkeley ordered captain Humphries, 
of the Leopard, to follow the Chesapeake beyond the waters of the 
United States, and demand the deserters : this he did, and, after 
demanding the seamen, fired a broadside upon the American frigate 
This unexpected attack so disconcerted captain Barron, that he im- 
mediately struck the colours of the Chesapeake, and permitted the 
four seamen to be taken without resistance. The Leopard carried 
fifty, the Chesapeake only thirty-six guns. On board the latter, four 
men were killed and sixteen wounded. One of the impressed seamen 
was afterwards hanged, and one died in prison : and there was reason 
for supposing that three of them w^ere native Americans. Captain 
Barron, for neglect of duty, was suspended from command for five 
years. This tragical occurrence produced a general indignation. 
The British, however, disavowed admiral Berkeley's orders, and re- 
moved him from the station, but soon after appointed him to a more 
important one. 

2. New systems of blockade were invented by the belligerents* 
commencing with the French decree of Berlin, of November 21, 



452 UNITED STATES. 

1,806 : January 7, 1,807, came the British order prohibiting coasting 
trade; November 11, the celebrated British orders in council; and 
December 7, the French Milan decree. December 22, of the same 
year, congress, on the recommendation of Mr. Jefferson, then presi- 
dent, ordered an embargo, prohibiting the exportation of every article 
from the United States. March 4, 1,809, the embargo was removed, 
and non- intercourse substituted. April 19, an arrangement was made 
with Mr. Erskine, which induced the American government to renew 
the trade with England ; this arrangement was subsequently disavow- 
ed by the British government. The insulting deportment of the suc- 
ceeding negotiator, Mr. Jackson, heightened the resentment of the 
republic ; and a rencounter between the American and British ships 
of war, President and Little Belt, increased the unfriendly sentiments 
of England. 

3. Mr. Foster, a new British minister, offered honourable reparation 
for the indignity on the Chesapeake ; but no change could be procur- 
ed in the systems practised by Great Britain and France against 
American trade. The United States now offered to either of the 
belligerents, or both, as soon as they ceased to violate the neutral 
commerce of the republic, that the non-intercourse arrangement 
should be discontinued. The French artfully embraced the offer, by 
information that the French Berlin and Milan decrees had been re- 
voked ; and non-intercourse with France was discontinued by procla- 
mation of the president. 

4. War was declared by the United States against Great Britain, 
June 18, 1,812, too late to avail themselves of the retraction of the 
Bntisn orders in council, which followed the repeal of the Berlin and 
Milan decrees. The congress voted an addition to the regular army, 
of twenty-five thousand men ; authorized a loan of eleven millions ; 
and nearly doubled the duties on imports. 

5. Previous to the declaration of war, indications of hostility had 
appeared among the Indians on the frontiers bordering on Canada. 
A body of troops, under governor Harrison, was attacked on the 7th 
of November, 1,811, near a branch of the Wabash, by a larger body 
of Indians, who were defeated, not without considerable loss to the 
Americans. 

6. On the 12th of July, general Hull, governor of the Michigan 
territory, crossed from Detroit into the province of Canada, with a 
considerable force. In this situation, he soon received intelligence of 
the capture of the American post at Michillimackinac. On the 8th 
of August, he returned to Detroit, followed by the British general 
Brock, with his regulars and Indians ; and he soon surrendered to the 
British, not only his army, but included the whole territory of Michi- 
gan in the articles oi capitulation. He was afterwards tried, and 
found guilty of cowardice and neglect of duty, and sentenced to be 
shot : but, in consideration of his revolutionary services, and his age, 
the court recommended him to mercy, and the president withdrew the 
punishment of death. He has since endeavoured, by letters address- 
ed to the people of this country, to justify his conduct ; and with many 
persons his endeavours have been successful. 

7. On the 19th of August, the Constitution frigate, captain Hull, 
captured the British frigate Guerriere, captain Dacres, after an action 
of thirty minutes: loss of the Guerriere, fifteen killed, sixty-four 
wounded, and twenty-one missing — that of the Constitution, seven 
killed and seven wounded. October 25, the frigate United States, 
captain Decatur, met the British frigate Macedonian, off the western 



UNITED STATES. 453 

isles, and captured her after an action of one hour and a half : British 
loss, thirty-six killed and sixty-eight wounded — American loss, seven 
killed, five wounded. The next naval achievement was the capture 
of the British brig Frolic by the American sloop Wasp, commanded 
by captain Jones : British loss, thirty killed and fifty wounded— 
American, five killed, five wounded. In December, the Constitution, 
captain Bainbridge, again met the enemy, and the frigate Java was 
captured : British loss, sixty killed, and one hundred and one wound- 
ed — American, nine killed, twenty-five wounded. Besides these vic- 
tories of public ships, numerous privateers swarmed the ocean, and 
before the meeting of congress, in November, nearly two hundred and 
fifty vessels were captured from the enemy. 

8. In November, general Van Rensselaer, with about one thousand 
troops, crossed the Niagara river into Upper Canada, and attacked 
the British at Queenstown ; and, after an obstinate engagement, was 
obliged to surrender, with a loss of sixty killed, and about one hundred 
wounded. In this engagement the British general Brock was killed. 

9. Early in 1,813, an action was fought at the river Raisin, between 
an American detachment, under general Winchester, and a British and 
Indian force under colonel Proctor. The Americans were defeated, and 
the greater part of five hundred prisoners were immediately massacred, 
Proctor being unable or unwilling to protect them, as he had expressly 
stipulated ! Soon after, general Harrison was attacked and besieged, 
by the combined British and Indians at fort Meigs. A desultory war 
was kept up for some time. Colonel Dudley Was detached from the 
fort, to attack the enemy's battery on the opposite side of the river. 
He succeeded in capturing the battery, but his troops, imprudently 
pursuing the enemy, were soon surrounded by an Indian army, three 
times their number, headed by the Indian general Tecumseh ; a des- 
perate fight, and a scene of slaughter almost as terrible as that at 
Raisin, ensued. Of eight hundred men composing the detachment, 
only about one hundred and fifty escaped. 

10. On the 21st of February, the British attacked Ogdensburgh, on 
the river St. Lawrence, with a force of twelve hundred, and compelled 
the Americans to evacuate the place. In April, the Americans, under 
general Pike, landed at York, in Upper Canada ; and, after some se- 
vere fighting, succeeded in capturing or destroying a large amount ot 
public stores. The British lost seven hundred and fifty men, in killed, 
wounded, and captured. The brave Pike was mortally wounded, by 
the explosion of a magazine, which had been purposely set on fire. 
The object of the expedition being gained, the American forces evac- 
uated York on the 1st of May, and re-embarked. 

11. Fort George, commanded by general Vincent, was taken by 
the American forces, under general Boyd and colonel Miller, May 27 
after a sharp conflict. The British lost, in killed and wounded, about 
two hundred and fifty men, besides six hundred prisoners — their an- 
tagonists, thirty-nine killed and one hundred and eight wounded. 
Soon afterwards, generals Chandler and Winder, who had advanced 
with a considerable force, were attacked in the night, by general 
Vincent, who had been reinforced, between fort George and Burling- 
ton bay, and, in a scene of confusion, were both made prisoners ; their 
troops retired to fort George. 

12. Captain James Lawrence, of the Hornet, fell in with, and cap- 
tured, the British sloop of war Peacock, February 24. The action 
lasted eisrht minutes ; and the British captain and several others were 
killed, and twenty-nine wounded — the Hornet had three wounde4s 



454 UNITED STATES. 

The Peacock sunk soon after the action, and thirteen British sailors 
went down with her. Captain Lawrence was afterwards appointed to 
the command of the ill-fated Chesapeake, then lying in Boston harbour. 
The British frigate Shannon, commanded by captain Broke, had been 
for some time in the bay, seeking an engagement with an American 
frigate. Lawrence, burning with impatience to meet the enemy, did 
not wait to inquire into the relative condition of the vessels. The 
Shannon had a picked crew, and was accoutred for the express pur- 
pose of engaging an American frigate of the largest size. The Ches- 
apeake, not of the largest description of frigates, had recently dis- 
charged a part of her crew, and enlisted others : several of her officers 
were sick. Lawrence sailed on the first of June ; and when he came 
within sight of the Shannon, addressed his crew, but they listened with 
no enthusiasm : some complained that they had not received their 
prize money — murmurs and dissatisfaction were general ; in fact the 
crew were almost in a state of mutiny. The Chesapeake closed with 
the enemy and gave the first broadside ; and at the first fire of the 
Shannon, captain Lawrence was mortally wounded. A second and a 
third broadside gave the British a decided advantage, which was fol- 
lowed up by boarding the Chesapeake. A scene of carnage ensued ; 
captain Lawrence was carried below, exclaiming, as he left the deck, 
" Don't give up the ship." Every officer qualified for command in 
the Chesapeake, was either killed or disabled : about eighty were 
killed, and as many wounded. Of the British, twenty-three were 
killed and fifty-six wounded. The captured frigate was carried in 
triumph to Halifax. The brilliant achievements of Wellington and 
Nelson scarcely called forth more lively expressions of exultation m 
England, than did the capture of the Chesapeake. The tower guns 
at London were fired on reception of the news, and the prince regent 
conferred on captain Broke the order of knighthood. 

13. On the 4th of August, the American sloop of war Argus was 
captured by the Pelican, a vessel of her own class, but said to be two 
guns superior. Captain Allen> commander of the Argus, was mortally 
wounded at the first broadside of the enemy. In the following month, 
the American brig Enterprize captured the Boxer, a vessel superior 
in effective force. The only person killed on board the Enterprize 
was her gallant commander, lieutenant Burroughs, and thirteen were 
wounded. The British loss was greater : among the slain was captain 
Blythe, who commanded the Boxer, and who was buried by the side 
of his antagonist in the town of Portland, off whose harbour the action 
was fought. 

14. But the most brilliant achievement this year was that of th* 
youthful Perry on lake Erie. The British force consisted of six ves- 
sels, having sixty-three guns ; that of the Americans, of nine vessels 
and fifty-six guns. The conflict was tremendous. The flag ship of 
Perry suffered dreadfully in the loss of men, and was on the point of 
sinking : he left the ship in the midst of the hottest fire, and proceed 
ed to another vessel ; and after three hours conflict, the laurel of 
victory was assigned to Perry ; the triumph was complete — not a single 
vessel of the enemy escaped. This action took place on the 10th of 
September, and made the Americans masters of the lake. The gallant 
Perry announced this victory in the following laconic epistle to general 
Harrison : " We have met the enemy and they are ours — two ships, 
two brigs, one schooner, and one sloop." 

15. Chesapeake bay was blockaded by the British during the spring 
of this year, and several predatory incursions by their troops were 



UNITED STATES. 45 

made. Much property was plundered and destroyed, and many dis- 
graceful scenes occurred, particularly at Hampton and Havre dp. 
Grace. 

16. An attack was made, May 29, on Sackett's harbour by about one 
thousand British, who were repulsed with considerable loss. General 
Brown commanded the American, and sir George Prevost the British 
troops. About the same time the British attacked Craney Island, 
near Norfolk, and were defeated with loss. 

17. General Dearborn, the American commander, retired from ser- 
vice this year. Fort Sandusky was invested by a large force of British 
and Indians ; and the exploit of major Croghan in repulsing the assail- 
ants with great loss, called torth general admiration. In October, 
Detroit was abandoned by the British, on the approach of a large 
army under general Harrison ; who, soon after, defeated the enemy 
under the command of general Proctor, in Upper Canada ; in this 
battle the celebrated Tecumseh was killed. 

18. Little was done this year towards the conquest of Canada. 
General Wilkinson descended the St. Lawrence from lake Ontario in 
November ; and an engagement took place at Williamsburgh, in 
which the Americans were repulsed with the loss of three hundred 
killed, wounded, and prisoners. A disagreement between the generals 
Hampton and Wilkinson, prevented that concert which was necessary 
to secure success ; the design of attacking Montreal was relinquished, 
and the army retired to winter quarters. Fort George was evacuated 
in the month of December ; and misconceiving his instructions, general 
M'Clure, who commanded the fortress, set fire to the village of New- 
ark. Niagara was afterwards surprised and retaken by the British. — 
The British crossed over to the American side, and in resentment for the 
destruction of Newark, burnt Buffalo and some other villages, and laid 
waste the whole frontier. 

19. The Creek Indians, who had been for some time in open hos- 
tilities with the United States, w r ere completely subdued this season 
and the succeeding spring, principally by troops commanded by gen- 
eral Andrew Jackson. 

20. In January, 1,814, propositions having been made by the prince 
regent for a negotiation, Messrs. Russell and Clay were appointed to 
join Messrs. Adams, Bayard, and Gallatin, already in Europe, as 
commissioners to meet such as the British government might appoint ; 
and Messrs. Gambier, Golbourn, and William Adams were appointed 
to meet them. The place of assembling was first fixed at Gottenburg, 
but afterwards changed to Ghent in Flanders ; where the commission- 
ers met in August. 

21. The frigate Essex, captain David Porter, after having long 
cruised in the Pacific and captured a great number of British vessels, 
was herself captured in the harbour of Valparaiso, by the British 
frigate Phebe and the sloop Cherub. The Peacock captured the 
British brig Epervier, April 29, after an action of forty-two minutes. 
The Hornet sloop of war captured the English national brig Penguin ; 
and the old Constitution, under captain Stewart, overcame the united 
forces of the Cyane and Levant. 

22. In the beginning of July, fort Erie was taken by the Americans. 
On the 4th of July, a brilliant victory was gained by general Brown 
it Chippewa. On the 25th, one of the most sanguinary battles on rec- 
ord took place at Bridgewater : in this action the American generals 
Scott, Ripley, and Porter, with colonel Miller, majors Hindman, Jes 
gup, Leavenworth, and M'Neil. distinguished themselves. The 



456 UNITED STATES. 

British forces were led by generals Drummond and Rial. The battle 
lasted from four o'clock, P. M. until midnight. The British lost nine 
hundred, killed, wounded, and prisoners : the American loss was less 
The latter maintained their ground ; while the former retired. 

23. The town of Eastport in the bay of Passamaquoddy, was this 
year taken by a British naval force ; and soon after the British took 
possession of Castine and all that part of the new state of Maine, lying 
between that place and Penobscot river, and compelled many of the 
inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance to Great Britain. The 
British this year landed marauding parties, at Saybrook, Wareham, 
Scituate, and other places, and destroyed much shipping : in an at- 
tempt on Stonington, they were beaten off hy the gallant inhabitant 
with loss. 

24. From the 16th to the 20th of August, about sixty sail of the 
British arrived in the Chesapeake, intending to invade the States in 
earnest. More than fifty of them landed at Benedict, on the Patuxent, 
about forty miles from Washington. On the 22d the British flankers 
reached Wood Yard, fourteen miles from Washington. Commodore 
Barney here blew up a flotilla of gun boats to prevent their falling into 
the hands of the enemy. On the 23d the British forces, estimated at 
six thousand, reached Bladensburgh, about six miles from Washington. 
Here a short engagement took place ; but the greater part of the 
American militia fled. Commodore Barney, with a few eighteen 
pounders and about four hundred men, made a gallant resistance from 
Bladensburg to the city ; but he was wounded and taken prisoner. 
The British here destroyed the capitol, the president's house, and 
several other public buildings, mutilated the monument in the navy 
yard, and committed many excesses. In the night of the 25th, me 
British retired, gained their shipping by rapid marches, and embark- 
ed on board their ships on the 27th. Several British ships under cap- 
tain Gordon, at the same time, ascended the Potomac, appeared be- 
fore Alexandria, robbed the defenceless inhabitants of a vast quantity 
of flour and other plunder ; and escaped down the river without mo- 
lestation. 

25. August 14, General Drummond was repulsed in an attack on 
fort Erie, after a severe conflict, with a loss of five hundred and eighty; 
two in killed, wounded, and prisoners, two hundred and twenty-one 
being killed ; American loss in killed and wounded, two hundred and 
forty-five. 

26. On Sunday, the 11th of September, admiral Cochrane appeared 
off Baltimore with about fifty sail. The larger vessels landed at 
North Point, ten miles from the city, about seven thousand troops 
under general Ross and admiral Cockburn. The next day, as they 
advanced towards the city, they were met by general Strieker with 
about three thousand militia, and a severe engagement took place, in 
which the British general was killed. The Americans were however 
repulsed by superior numbers ; and on Tuesday evening, the Bjitish 
advanced to within about two miles of the American entrenchments. 
But so strong was the American force, and so valiantly had they fought 
the preceding day, that the British retreated before morning, and 
hastily re-embarked. A grand attack was made on Tuesday on fort 
M'Henry, on the other side of the city and commanding the water 
passage to it, from frigates, bomb, and rocket vessels, which lasted the 
whole day and a part of the night, doing but little damage. In the 
night about a thousand of the enemy landed between the tort and the 
city, but were soon repulsed The loss of the Americans in killed, 



UNITED STATES. 

tyounded, and prisoners, was two hundred and thirteen : t 
British is not known. The enemy, thus discomfited, moved 
bay. 

27. The governor-general of Canada, sir George Prevost, with 
from twelve to fourteen thousand men, made an attack on Pittsburgh, 
September 11. At the same time a naval engagement, on lake Cham- 
plain, took place in sight of the land forces. The American fleet 
having eighty-six guns and eight hundred and twenty-six men, was 
commanded by captain M'Donough ; the British, consisting of ninety- 
five guns and one thousand and fifty men, was commanded by com- 
modore Downie. The action ended in the surrender of the British 
vessels, viz. one frigate, one brig, and two sloops of war. Some of 
their gallies were sunk ; others escaped. American loss, fifty-two 
killed, fifty-eight wounded : British loss, eighty-four killed, one 
hundred and ten wounded. At the same time that the fleets were 
engaged, governor Prevost attacked the forts at Plattsburgh with his 
'and forces, throwing shells, halls, and rockets : he attempted to cross 
/he Saranac, but was repulsed at three different places. So effectual 
was the fire of the Americans, that, before sunset, the batteries he had 
erected were all silenced; and at nine o'clock in the evening his 
whole army began a rapid retreat, leaving many wounded, and much 
ammunition, provision, and baggage. The American loss this day, 
and in skirmishes previous on land, was thirty-nine killed, sixty-two 
wounded, and twenty missing: the loss of the British, in killed* 
wounded, and deserters, besides those on board the fleet, was estimat- 
ed at two thousand five hundred. General Alexander Macomb com- 
manded the American land forces. 

28. As on Erie and Champlain, so on the lake Ontario, each party 
strove for a naval ascendency. Several large ships were built by the 
Americans at Sackett's harbour, and by the British at Kingston. The 
American fleet was commanded by captain Chauncey, and the British 
by commodore Yeo. As at no time, one side equalled the other in 
strength, so at all times one avoided as the other sought for an engage- 
ment. A partial action once took place ; but the British commander, 
at that time supposing his force inferior, took the advantage of cir- 
cumstances to make his port. One of the British vessels ready for 
sea at the close of the war manned nearly one hundred guns ; ana two 
of the largest class of vessels in the world vvere at the same time 
erecting at Sackett's harbour. 

29. In a sortie from fort Erie, under the command ot general Jacob 
Brown, after a severe engagement, the British were defeated with the 
loss of nearly a thousand, in killed, wounded, and prisoners : the 
American loss exceeded five hundred. 

30. The frigate President, commodore Decatur, sailed from New- 
York, January 14, 1,815, and was the next day pursued by four frigates 
and a brig of the enemy. An engagement took place between the 
foremost of the pursuing vessels, the Endymion and the President ; 
after a severe action of two hours, the Endymion was silenced and 
beaten off. The Pamone and Tenedos in one hour coming up, the 
President was obliged to surrender. 

31. One of the most splendid events on the part of the Americans 
closed the late war : it was the discomfiture and repulse of the British 
at New-Orleans. A very large British force entered lake Pontchar- 
train, near New-Orleans, early in December, 1,814, defeating, after 
ill obstinate conflict the smalf American naval force stationed there 
The British were commanded by general Packenham, one of Welling 

Q.q 58 



453 UNITED STATES. 

ton's invincibles who had conquered the great Napoleon . the Atneri* 
can army was led by general Andrew Jackson. Several skirmishes 
took place, in which the British were almost the exclusive sufferers. 
On Sunday morning early, January 8, a grand attack was made by 
the British on the American troops in their entrenchments. After an 
engagement of more than an hour, the enemy were cut to pieces to a 
degree almost beyond example, and fled in confusion, leaving on the 
field of battle their dead and wounded. The British loss was seven 
hundred killed, fourteen hundred wounded, and five hundred prisoners: 
the generals Packenham and Keane, were among the slain, and gen- 
eral Cobb was dangerously wounded. The American loss was said lo 
be only seven killed and six wounded ! The attack was not renewed, 
and in a short time after, the British left the west. 

32. Up to the close of 1,814, the British ministry, calculating to 
bring the Americans to their terms, had discovered an indisposition to 
treat with the commissioners of the United States ; but the defeat of 
die British before Plattsburgh, gave a new turn to the negotiation, and 
a treaty of peace was signed at Ghent, December 24, 1,814. Both 
nations agreed to appoint commissioners to settle disputed boundaries. 
No allusion was made in the treaty to the causes of the war. Security 
against their recurrence rests, however, on a much firmer basis than 
the provisions of the most solemn treaty. Britain has been taught to 
appreciate the strength of the republic. By this war the public debt 
of the United States was increased a hundred millions of dollars. 

33. It would too much extend this sketch of the history of the re- 
public, to trace to its source the origin of parties which have divided 
the country into two great sections with different appellations. The 
distinction was unknown until subsequent to Mr. Jay's treaty with 
Great Britain in 1,795. George Washington was elected president in 
1,788, and re-elected in 1,792. He was succeeded by John Adams, 
elected in 1,796, between whom and Thomas Jefferson the parties 
divided in 1,800: the latter was chosen at that time, not however 
until he had been balloted for thirty-six times by the house of repre- 
sentatives in congress, the vote by s'ates being at each balloting 
equally divided between Mr. Jefferson and Aaron Burr. In 1,804, 
Mr. Jefferson was re-elected. Declining an election in 1,808, Mr. 
Jefferson gave place to James Madison. The latter continuing eight 
years, James Monroe was elected to the presidency in 1,816 ; and so 
general was the satisfaction with the administration, that in 1,820, he 
had all the electoral votes save one for the same office. 

34. Since the peace the attentipn of the countiy has been called to 
the propriety of augmenting the national defence. Congress having 
made appropriations for the purpose, extensive fortifications have been 
aid continue to be erected tor the security of the commercial towns. 
One million of dollars annually is likewise appropriated for the grad- 
ual augmentation of the navy, to which, independent of smaller 
vessels, nine ships of the line, twelve frigates, and three floating batte- 
ries are to be added. 

- 35. By an act of congress in the year 1,818, a yearly pension, suffi- 
cient for Iheir decent maintenance, having been granted to those officers 
and privates who served more than nine months at any one time in the 
war of the revolution, more than thirty thousand individuals made ap- 
plication for relief. The sum required much exceeded general ex- 
pectation ; and the following year an additional act was passed which 
circumscribed the applicants to a narrow space. Importations having 
lessened, the amount received into the treasury from duties became 



UNITED STATES. 459 

less than the calculations ; and in 1,821, the standing military force 
was reduced from ten to six thousand, and the building of ships of war 
was, in some degree, suspended. 

36 Since the admission of Louisiana in 1,812, six other states have 
been admitted into the Union — Indiana in 1,816,' Mississippi in 1,817 
Illinois in 1,818, Alabama in 1,819, Maine in 1,820, and Missouri in 
1,821. Indiana and Illinois are sections of the same territory from 
which Ohio was made a state. Mississippi and Alabama belonged to 
Georgia and Louisiana : Maine was separated from Massachusetts, and 
Missouri from the vast tract ceded by the French, under the name of 
Louisiana. 

37. A treaty was concluded at Washington in 1,819, by which Spain 
ceded to the United States that portion of her territory, known by the 
name of Florida. Five millions of dollars was the price ; and the 
sum, io pursuance of the treaty, has been paid as indemnity to Amer- 
ican citizens for illegal seizures of their property in Spanish ports. 

38. Besides the different state governments, territorial governments, 
with magistrates appointed by the president and senate, exist in 
Michigan, Arkansas, and Florida. 

39. In the year 1,820, the fourth authorized census of the inhabitants 
was recorded. The progress of population has been rapid almost 
beyond a parallel. In 1,790, the population was three millions line 
hundred and twenty-one thousand : in 1,800, five millions tnree 
hundred and twenty thousand : in 1,810, seven millions two hundred 
and forty thousand ; and in 18,20, nine millions six hundred and thirty- 
eight thousand. 



PART FIFTH. 

SECTION I, 

ADDITIONAL FACTS, BRINGING DOWN THE GENERAL HIS- 
TORY TO THE PRESENT TIME. 

1. In 1,820, some commotion was caused in France by the assassina- 
tion of the Duke of Berri ; nephew of Louis XVIII. and son of the 
present king. He was stabbed at the door of the opera house by an 
obscure person named Louvel. It appeared that the assassin was 
instigated to this horrid deed merely by a thirst ibr revenging -an al- 
leged injury, which he suffered many years previous. 

2. Napoleon Bonaparte died at St". Helena, May 5th 1,821, aged 52. 
He was a man of talents which few other men are competent to esti- 
mate : of astonishing foresight and intrepidity : of insatiable ambition. 
His career was marked by the most splendid achievements. He was 
destined by Providence to humble the pride of the Princes of the 
earth, to shake the foundations of arbitrary power, and then, to be 
himself humbled and debased. To France he s^ave a code of laws, 
the influence of which has been felt throughout Europe, and will ex- 
lend through the world. He gave to the lower classes of the commu- 
nity, an activity and importance, which they had never felt ; but which, 
having been once appreciated, they are not likely to surrender. His 
political maxims, however selfish in their ends, were utterly at vari- 
ance with that baser love of arbitrary dominion, which is regardless 
of the welfare of its subjects. He loved to govern ; but his ambition 
made him wish to govern an industrious, enlightened, and happy 
world ; and wherever he extended his conquests, he endeavoured to 

elieve the oppressed, and break the shackles under which humanity 
groaned. The efforts which are now making by the lower classes in 
almost every arbitrary government, to obtain free constitutions which 
shall elevate them from the rank of slaves to that of citizens, are to 
be ascribed, in a great measure, to the influence of his institutions, and 
his example. We can mark no limits to the blessings which, under 
Heaven, he dispensed while he lived, and bequeathed to posterity. 
If we judge him by the effects of his conquests, his institutions and his 
administration of government, he will appear one of the greatest bene- 
factors of mankind : but if as Christians, we estimate his character by 
the motives which he manifested throughout his career, we shall find 

ittle in it to applaud, but much to condemn. Although it was a part 
of his policy to ameliorate the condition of men, a wish to extend and 
to secure his own sovereignty over them appears to have been his 
ruling motive. An all-wise Providence converted his deeds into 
blessings, but they cannot entitle him to the praise of Christian virtue. 
If his rise and reign was all that men call glorious, his downfall ex- 
hibited a reverse no less signal. Confined on one of the most barren 
and dismal islands in the world, — guarded and controlled by gaolers, 
who exercised towards him a petty tyranny, which denied not unfre- 
quently the common civilities of life, — wasted by a long and painful 
disease, — all the circumstances about him combined to mock his for- 
mer greatness, and to witness to an ambitious world that he who 
exaiieth himself shall be abased. 



ADDITIONAL FACTS, &c. 461 

3. In 1,823, France obtained permission from the Congress of Allied 
Sovereigns, held at Verona, to invade Spain, and re-establish the king 
in his former authority. It was expected that the friends of the new 
constitution would have been able to make a powerful resistance to 
this invasion ; but the conquest proved easy ; and this revolution, 
like that of 1,820, was accomplished with very little bloodshed. On 
the 16th day of Sept. 1,824, Louis XVIII. died of the dropsy; his 
brother succeeded to the throne and took the title of Charles a. 

4. A revolution similar in its character to that in Spain took place 
in Portugal in 1,820. In 1,821, the Royal Family, with the exception 
of the Prince Royal, the king's son, returned from Brazil. The king 
swore to the free constitution, and the kingdom enjoyed a good de- 
gree of tranquillity until May 1,823, when a counter-revolution was 
commenced, and on the 3d of June the king issued his proclamation 
announcing the restoration of the Ancient Monarchy. 

5. In England, George IV. succeeded to the throne upon the death 
of his father George III. He had for many years been Prince 
Regent The year was distinguished by domestic commotions, of 
which the disturbances among the labouring classes in Manchester 
and other manufacturing towns, were the most alarming. The al- 
leged cause of complaint was the low price of wages, which was 
declared to be quite disproportionate to their services. Large meet- 
ings were held in many places, and very riotous proceedings passed, 
and the nation was much alarmed by the prospects of a civil war 
The malecontents found several able leaders, among whom Hunt and 
Thistlewood were prominent. The commotions were, however, 
quelled without their objects being obtained. Hunt suffered a long 
imprisonment ; Thistlewood and tour others were executed, and five • 
were transported. 

6. But this year was principally memorable tor the trial ol the 
Queen on a charge of adultery. This affair produced a remarkable 
degree of excitement not only throughout that kingdom, but also on 
the continent and in America. . . 

7. Since the termination of these difficulties the nation has enjoyed 
tranquillity and a high degree of prosperity. 

8. The summer of 1,821, was remarkable for tne scantiness ot the 
crops in Ireland. The following winter brought a most distressing 
famine, of which great numbers perished. 

9. Since the establishment of peace in 1,815, the Northern States 
of Europe have enjoyed a good degree of tranquillity, lew events 
have occurred, to serve as items ot general history. By a decree ot 
the Emperor of Russia in 1,811, the government of that empire was 
declared to be a constitutional monarchy. Little was done till alter 
the peace to limit its despotic character, but since that period some 
constitutional privileges have been granted to the subjects. Similar 
improvements have been made, and are making, in the governments 
of most of these States. Prussia has established assemblies, which 
bear a representative character. .. - 

10. In 1,815, the Congress of Vienna, composed of the authorities ot 
Austria, France, Great-Britain, Prussia, and Russia, made a solemn 
declaration of their resolution to put a stop to he African Slave Trade. 
This wicked traffic was not, however, diminished by this measure be- 
cause France was totally unfaithful to her promise. At the Congress 
of Verona in 1,823, the same powers, with the exception of France, 
declared that this crime ought to be assimilated with that ot piracy, 
and hence punishable with death. 

Qq2 



462 HISTORY OF NEW SPAIN. 

11. In 1,816, the Jesuits were expelled from Moscow and Peters- 
burgh, and in 1,820, from the whole Russian empire, and forbidden 
ever to return. 

12. Pope Pius VII. died Aug. 20, 1,823, in the eighty-second year 
of his age, and the twenty-fourth of his pontificate. He was succeed- 
ed by the Cardinal Delia Genga, who assumed the title of Leo XII. 
The present Pope, was born on the 2d of Aug. 1,760. He was Nun- 
cio fourteen years in the electorates of the Rhine. At the period of 
the persecutions exercised by Bonaparte against the Catholic Church, 
he was obliged to quit Rome with the other prelates and cardinals. 
At the restoration, he was the cardinal selected by Pius VII. to 
congratulate Louis XVIIL on his return. The commencement of his 
pontificate has been signalized by his refusal to restore the Inquisition 
'm Spain, declaring it inconsistent with the liberal spirit of the age. 

13. In the summer of 1,820, an insurrection broke out in Naples 
and Sicily, and so feeble was the established government, that the 
insurgents soon compelled the king to grant them a free constitution. 
The Allied Sovereigns of Europe at their session at Troppau, near the 
close of the same year, made a formal declaration of irreconcilable 
hostility to this new government. In 1,821, they decided at the Con- 
gress of Laybach, that a portion of the Austrian army should occupy 
Naples, to restore the authority of the king. This was readily ac- 
complished, and with little opposition. The Spanish constitution ot 
1,812, was granted to Naples and Sicily, and tranquillity was restored 
Similar disturbances took place at the same period in some of the 
Sardinian States, but they were quieted by the result of those in Na- 
ples and Sicily. 

14. Turkey has enjoyed little tranquillity for many years. The 
Grreeks revolted from the Ottoman power in 1,821 ; and from that 
period to the present a bloody war has been carried on between them 
and the Turks. The latter have committed frequent and horrible 
massacres of the Christians in Constantinople, Scio, and other places ; 
and have endeavoured to reduce their revolted subjects by every act 
of cruelty and oppression. The Greeks have maintained their strug- 
gle for independence with much bravery and spirit, which has some- 
times become ferocity ; but they are neither sufficiently virtuous nor 
civilized to act in full concert in resisting oppression. It is impossible 
to judge how far they have been really successful, and what are their 
prospects of ultimate success, owing to the want of authentic channels 
of information ; but at this moment the existing probability is decid- 
edly in favour of their success. 

SECTION SECOND. 
HISTORY OF NEW SPAIN. 

COMPILED PRINCIPALLY FROM POINSETT'S NOTES ON MEXICO. 

1. When this country was first visited by the Spaniards in 1,519, 
it had attained a high degree of civilization. Of this we may judge 
by the form of its government, its laws, and its civil institutions. 

2. The monarch was chosen from among the members of the reign- 
ing family by six electors, chosen from among the thirty princes of 
the first ranlc. The political system was feudal. The first class of 
nobles, consisting of thirty families, had each one hundred thousand 



HISTORY OF NEW SPAIN. 463 

vassals. The second class consisted of more than three thousand 
families. The lords exercised the right of life and death over their 
vassals. All the lands were divided into allodial, hereditary, and 
contingent estates,— the latter depending upon places in the gift of the 
crown. 

3. The priests were charged with the education of youth ; and on 
their testimony of the merit of their scholars, depended their future 
rank. Under Montezuma, the emperor at this period, the government 
was despotic, but he was subject to the high priest. Each province 
was subject to a tribute ; but certain nobles were excepted, who were 
compelled to take the field in case of a war, with a stated number oi 
followers. The tribute was paid in kind, and was fixed at one thir- 
tieth part of the crop. The governors of provinces also vied with 
each other in the magnificence of their presents to the emperor. 

4. Sacrilege, murder, and treason, were punished with death ; and 
the laws of the empire were generally as much respected as in the 
most civilized European nations of that age. The attention of the 
government was principally directed towards the internal commerce, 
so as to secure an abundant supply to the people. Posts were estab- 
lished between the capital and the remotest provinces. A court of 
ten magistrates determined the validity of contracts ; and officers were 
constantly employed to examine the measures and the quality of goods 
exposed for sale. 

5. Besides the empire of the Mexicans, of which we have been 
sneaking, there were other powerful states, whose form of government 
«*as republican. The most powerful of these was Tlascala, the gov- 
ernment of which continued for some time after the conquest of, 
VTexico. It was a thickly settled, fertile, and populous country, di- 
fided into districts, each under the authority of a chief. These chiefs 
administered justice, levied the tribute, and commanded the military 
forces, but their decrees were not valid, or of force, until confirmed by 
the senate of Tlascala, which was the true sovereign. A certain num- 
ber of citizens, chosen from the different districts by popular assem- 
blies, formed this legislative body. The senate elected its own chief. 
The laws were strictly and impartially executed ; and the people are 
represented as numerous, wealthy, and powerful. 

6. The Mexicans possessed some knowledge of Astronomy, and 
their calendar was constructed with more exactness than that "of the 
Greeks, the Romans, or the Egyptians. Their hieroglyphics, drawings, 
and maps — their cities and artificial roads, causeways, canals, and im- 
mense pyramids — their government and hierarchy, and administration 
of laws — their knowledge of the art of mining, and of preparing metals 
for ornament and use — their skill in carving images out of the hardest 
stone — in manufacturing and dying cloths, and the perfection of their 
agriculture, afford ample evidence of the high degree of civilization 
attained by the Mexicans. If we recollect that at this period, the art 
of printing was not used in Europe, — that the Reformation had not 
taken place, — that most of the great improvements in arts and science 
are of more modern date, we shall see no reason to call the Mexicans 
barbarous, compared with their proud invaders, or with other nations 
of that period. Their religion was disgraced by gross superstition ; 
and the sacrifice of human victims was not unfrequent. But, still, 
when compared with other nations, they were not deficient in practi- 
cal virtue. Indeed nothing in their character appears to have been 
half so gross and antichristian, as the merciless conduct of their inva- 
ders, We cannot estimate them by the degraded state of the remain- 



464 HISTORY OF NEW SPAIN. 

ing natives ; for when the country was conquered, its aits, and sciences, 
and civil and religious institutions ceased, because those classes in the 
community by whom knowledge was possessed and transmitted, were 
utterly exterminated. 

7. Shortly after the Spaniards under Cortez landed at Vera Cruz, 
he received messengers from Montezuma, biinging with them presents 
to a considerable amount, and entreating Cortez not to advance far- 
ther into the country. But the sight of this display of wealth stimu- 
lated the cupidity of the Spaniards, and confirmed their resolution to 
penetrate to the capital. In their route they had to contend against 
the republic of Tlascala, a nation continually at war with the empire 
of Mexico. Cortez vanquished them in two battles, and found no 
difficulty in enlisting them against Montezuma. Six thousand Tlasca- 
lans were added, as auxiliaries, to his European troops, and he con- 
tinued his march upon the capital of the empire under the guise of 
friendship. As he advanced, he continued to augment his forces by 
treaties with other nations and tribes which were inimical to Monte- 
zuma ; and with a European force of five hundred infantry and fifteen 
horsemen, and a large army of Indians, he reached the city of Tenoch- 
titlan on the 8th of Nov. 1,519. The emperor received him with a 
degree of magnificence that excited the astonishment of the Spaniards. 
The whole army was lodged and entertained sumptuously, and Cortez 
received presents to a great amount. 

8. Montezuma soon found that by admitting an armed and power- 
ful friend into his capital, lit had delivered himself and his people 
into the hands of a ferocious enemy. Cortez demanded that the 
Mexican general, Qualpopoca, who had committed some hostilities on 

tile colony left at Vera Cruz, should be delivered up to him, bound 
hand and foot, and he caused him to be burnt alive. He next got 
possession of the person of the emperor and detained him prisouer.But 
the indignation of the people was most excited by the contempt with 
which their religious rites and idols were treated by the Spaniards. 

9. Cortez was now compelled to leave the force at Tenoehtitlan 
the capital, in the command of Alvarado, and inarch against Narvaez 
who had arrived on the coast to deprive him of his command. Having 
vanquished Narvaez and obtained a considerable accession of force, 
he returned toTenochtitlan,and found that the Mexicans had burnt the 
vessels which he had constructed on the Lake,and had just laid siege 
to the building in which the Spaniards were lodged. The siege was 
vrosecuted with vigour by the natives, and the place defended with 
obstinacy by the Spaniards. Montezuma having ascended a terrace 
was killed by a stone or arrow,and hisbrotherQuetlavaca proclaimed 
his successor. This gave such vigour to the Mexicans,that the Span- 
iards were obliged to retreat with great loss. At Otumba, Cortez was 
obliged to turn and give them battle. He was victorious, and pro- 
ceeded to Tlascala without further trouble. To secure his ascenden- 
cy over this repubiic,he made frequent incursions into the territories 
of neighbouring nations, and with uniform success. 

30. In December 1,52], he returned to the vale of Tezcuco, and 
fiorn this place continued to carry on the war against, the Mexicans 
and their allies. He ordered to be constructed at Tlascala the frames 
of thirteen vessels,and they were brought by an immense number of 
Indians to the Lake Tezcuco. When these vessels were ready, lie 
sent for his allies,amounting to fifty thousand troops,who soon arrived. 
Altera siege of seventy-five days the city was captured, Aug. 13th. 
1,523. The captured Mexicans were divided among the conquerors 



HISTORY OF NEW SPAIN. 465 

-one fiftn being reserved for the king of Spain ; and they continued 
to be treated as slaves for centuries, notwithstanding the humane laws 
passed in Spain for their relief. This conquest was completed in the 
reign of Guatimozin son of Montezuma, who had succeeded to the 
throne after the death of Quetlavaca. 

11. There is little interesting in the history of Mexico from this 
period till the commencement of the Revolution in 1,810. Almost the 
only bright spot in the page of its history during this period, is the 
administration of the viceroy Revillagigedo. Good roads, leading 
from the capital to different parts of the "kingdom, were made by his 
orders ; the streets of the principal cities were paved and lighted, 
and good police regulations established. An authentic statistical 
account of the country was made, and almost every salutary law and 
regulation, now in existence, may be traced to his administration. 

12. To understand the nature of the authority which Spain exer- 
cised ever her American Colonies, it is necessary to remark that all 
acquisitions in America were considered as belonging to the crown, 
rather than to the state. Pope Alexander VI. first bestowed them as 
a tree gift, upon Ferdinand and Isabella. They and their successors 
were to be held as the universal proprietors of the regions which had 
been, or should be discovered. All officers in the colonies, whether 
civil or ecclesiastic, were appointed by their authority, and remova- 
ble at their pleasure. The Spanish possessions were, at first, divided 
into two viceroyalties, New Spain and Peru ; but subsequently, a 
third was established at Santa Fe de Bogota, the jurisdiction of which 
extended over Terra Firma and the province of Quito. 

13. The authority of the viceroys was supreme in every depart- 
ment of government, civil, military, and criminal. To aid them in the 
administration of government in provinces remote from their residence, 
magistrates of various orders were appointed, subject to the viceroy ; 
and courts, called Audiences, were established, whose decisions were, 
in most cases, final. Upon the death of a viceroy without any pro- 
vision of a successor by the king, the supreme power was vested in 
the court of Audience resident in the capital of the viceroyalty, and 
the senior judge, assisted by his brethren, exercised all the functions 
of the viceroy, while the office continued vacant. 

14. The supreme government of all the Spanish possessions in 
America was, however, vested in the Council of the Indies. This 
Council was first established by Ferdinand in 1,511. Its jurisdiction 
extended to every department, ecclesiastical, civil, military, and com- 
mercial. All laws and ordinances relative to the government and 
police of the colonies originated there, and must be approved by two 
thirds of the members, before being issued in the name of the king. 
To it each person employed in America, from the viceroy downwards, 
was accountable. Before it was laid all intelligence public or secret, 
received from the colonies, and every scheme of improving the ad- 
ministration, police, or commerce, was submitted to its considera- 
tion. 

15. Another tribunal was established at Seville in 1,501, called 
Casa de la Coniratacion, or the house of trade. It was designed to 
regulate such commercial affairs as required the immediate and per- 
sonal inspection of those appointed to superintend them. Such is an 
outline of the system of government which Spain established in her 
American colonies. 

16. In 1,808, the viceroy of Mexico, Don Jose Iturrigaray, received 
such contradictory orders from the supreme authorities in Spain, as 

59 



466 HISTORY OF SPAIN. 

to render it necessary to call a Junta composed of a representative 
from each province. This measure excited the jealousy of the Eu- 
ropeans in the capital,as it was calculated to place the Creoles on an 
equal footing with themselves in the government. They therefore 
conspired against the viceroy, surprised him, and sent him and his 
family prisoners to Spain. Shortly after the arrival of the next vice- 
roy, Vanegas, the Creoles formed a conspiracy to overthrow his 
power. They collected a large force under Hidalgo a priest of some 
distinction, and for several months their success seemed almost cer- 
tain. But Hidalgo,by a most unaccountable mismanagement suffered 
his army to be defeated with great slaughter in Oct. 1,809, and their 
total defeat followed in January 1,811. 

17. Another attempt was soon made by the Creoles and Indians 
under Rayon, a lawyer of great influence, but the revolt was sup- 
pressed. A more formidable army was gathered by Morelos in 1,814 
— 15,and the contest for independence again appeared more hopeful; 
but he was defeated, taken prisoner, and executed. In Nov. 1,816 
the Patriots were cheered by the arrival of General Mina with a small 
force from England. Uniting himself with the army already in ope- 
ration, he sustained the conflict with great bravery Tor one year, but 
was then defeated and executed. The Independent army was now 
too feeble for offensive operation, and little was done until the revo- 
lution of Spain in 1,821. The decrees of the Cortez confiscating the 
estates, and reducing and reforming some of the higher orders of the 
clergy, excited the indignation of the church in Mexico, and from 
that time, the priests used their influence in favour of a separation 
from Spain. Although their influence had been somewhat diminished, 
it was still sufficient to produce the adoption of almost any measure 
which they should recommend. They were aided by the wealthy 
Europeans who were anxious to preserve the country in the pureness 
of despotism, that it might serve as a refuge for the king of Spain 
from the persecutions of the Cortez, and from the new constitution. 

18. Don Augustin Iturbide was fixed upon as a proper agent to 
carry their plans into effect. He had distinguished himself in the 
previous contests as an enemy to the patriots, and the clergy little an- 
ticipated that his love of tyranny would soon be exercised at the cost 
of their dearest plans. He at this time commanded a considerable 
army, and on receiving money to proceed into the southern provinces, 
he united himself with Guerrero, one of the patriot chiefs, and offered 
pardon to all who would unite themselves to his standard. From the 
very energetic operations of the revolutionists in the capital, the whole 
nation was soon roused in favour of independence. The viceroy was 
deposed ; Iturbide was made admiral of the navy, generalissimo of 
the army, and president of the Regency which was established by the 
new Junta. His ambitious designs now became manifest, and he found 
little difficulty in raising himself above the established authorities, and 
securing the reins of government. The Cortez were decidedly op- 
posed to him, but the soldiery were his friends, and they compelled 
the Cortez to declare him emperor on the 19th of May 1,822. After 
having attained this object of his ambition, he sought by every means 
to render his authority absolute, and elevated the members of his own 
family to offices of state. Many of the clergy were far from being 
satisfied with the elevation of Iturbide. The archbishop of Mexico 
refused to crown him, and retired from the capital. 

19. The emperor did not long enjoy his despotic reign. Santana, 
the governor of Vera Cruz could not brook the control of a supe- 



HISTORY OF THE WEST INDIES. 46* 

rior. Enjoying an independent command, and possessing the confi- 
dence of a great part of the community, he found no difficulty in raising 
a formidable force. He was soon joined by Guadalupe Victoria, who 
nad from the commencement 01 the revolution been a most faithful 
friend to the cause of liberty, but had been obliged, under the exist- 
ing despotism, to conceal himself in the mountains. Santana found 
that the great popularity of Guadalupe Victoria made it necessary 
to yield to him the supreme command. This being readily granted, 
they possessed each others confidence, and the confidence of the em- 
pire. The army in all parts declared for the republican principles 
of Santana, and the commander in chief, and Iturbide found it neces- 
sary first to summon the Cortez which he had forcibly dissolved, and 
afterwards, on the eighth of March 1,823, to abdicate the throne. He 
was permitted to leave the empire, and he sailed with his family for 
Leghorn on the 11th of May. He returned in the summer of 1,824, 
but was received by republicans who justly appreciated him. An 
order had been passed by the Congress for his immediate execution 
in case of his arrival ; and as soon as he was identified, he was im- 
prisoned, and, a few days after, was brought forth by public order 
and shot. 

20. Immediately after his abdication the nation declared for a re- 
publican government, and on the 2d of February 1,824, a federal 
constitution was adopted, amidst the shouts of the people ; and it is 
obviously the form of government best suited to the interests and wishes 
of a majority of the community. The principal defect in their con- 
stitution is the establishment of the Catholic religion. The nation 
cannot expect to enjoy the real freedom of republican institutions, 
while their minds are subjected under the real despotism of a national 
religion. In other respects the Constitution of this republic very near- 
ly resembles that of the United States. 

21. The former Captain-Generalship of Guatimala, with the ex- 
ception of Chiapa, declared its independence at the same time with 
Mexico, but refused to unite with that government. It has establish- 
ed an independent, federal government, under the title of the Confed- 
erated States of the Centre of America. The Roman Catholic religion 
is established here also, to the exclusion of all others ; and in most 
respects their constitution agrees with that of the Mexican Republic. 



SECTION THIRD. 
HISTORY OF THE WEST INDIES. 

1. The Bahamas were the first land discovered by Columbus,— 
Oct. 12th 1,492. The first settlement was made at Nassau in New 
Providence by the English, 1,672. These islands soon after became 
the resort of pirates. "Their leader was John Teach, called Black 
Beard, who for about ten years was the sovereign of these islands, 
and the terror of the North American coast. He was killed off the 
coast of N. Carolina in 1,718. During most of the remaining period 
the English have quietly possessed the Bahamas, but they have con- 
stantly served as lurking places for some pirates. These have multi- 
plied greatly in all the West Indies within the last ten years, and no 
effectual means have been devised for exterminating them. 

2. When the Bahamas were discovered, the population was esti- 
mated at about 40,000. The inhabitants called themselves Lucayans. 



468 HISTORY OF THE WEST INDIES. 

They were mostly devoted to maritime life, and subsisted principal- 
ly upon fish. They were ignorant of the use of iron, but made some 
use of cotton and of gold. They were a kind, friendly people, 
averse to war. Scarcely 20 years, however, had elapsed, before the 
rapacious Spaniards transported them all by force or artifice, to dig 
in the mines of Hispaniola. Being remarkably expert divers, some 
of them were afterwards transported to tne coast of Cumana, and em- 
ployed in the pearl fishery. 

3. The Greater Antilles when first discovered, were inhabited 
by a race called Arrowauks. The}'- also possessed a great part of 
1 rinidad. It appears that they were descended from the Arrowauks 
of Guiana. All of this name spoke one language, and had the same 
institutions. They believed in an invisible, omnipotent Creator* 
named Jocahuna, but admitted a plurality of subordinate deities, and* 
like the American Indians generally, they believed in a future state 
of retribution. Their children were entirely naked, but the adults 
wore a slight covering of cotton cloth round the waist. They were 
a mild ar.d hospitable people, but effeminate and sensual. The cli- 
mate, and fertility of the soil naturally made them indolent. From 
evening till dawn they were much engaged in dancing, and as many 
as 50,000 sometimes joined at once in this favourite amusement. 

4. These islands were divided into great kingdoms, subject to 
caciques or hereditary monarchs. Each kingdom was subdivided 
into numerous principalities. The regal authority was absolute, but 
was administered with great mildness. The aboriginal population 
has been estimated at 3,000,000 : but within 20 years after the dis- 
covery by Columbus, the great body of them were exterminated. A 
very few only remain in the island of Cuba 5 but the Arrowauks h» 
Guiana are still a distinct tribe. 

5. There is little in the history of colonial governments that is inter* 
esting and valuable ; and none of the West India islands, except St. 
Domingo, have become independent. The Spaniards have lost many 
of the islands to which they first laid claim ; but the present posses- 
tors are well known from common geographies, and the time when 
these trifling revolutions took place is of little consequence, while the 
effects produced, were so unimportant. One fact is worthy of record 
in favour of the Spaniards — whose rapacity and cruelty has been 
equalled by no other nation in modern times, and who have, of late 
years, been suffering a natural and just retribution of their enormities. 
But to their credit be it said, — their treatment of negro slaves has 
been more humane than that of other nations ; and the Spanish laws 
enacted in their favour, have had a powerful influence to enlighten the 
English and French in this cause of humanity. 

6. The Buccaniers, who were the forefathers of the present pirates, 
deserve some notice. They consisted originally of a body of French 
and English planters expelled by the Spaniards from the island of St. 
Christophers in 1,629, with circumstances of outrageous barbarity. 
They first established themselves on the small island of Tortuga, near 
the N. W. part of St. Domingo. They were here joined by some 
Dutch emigrants, who had been expelled in the same manner from 
Santa Cruz. Their first occupation was hunting wild cattle on the 
plains of St. Domingo, which they buccaned and brought to the place 
of their retreat. The word buccan signified a grate or hurdle on 
which meat was prepared before the fire ; and from their abundant 
use of it, these people were called buccaniers, buccaners, or buccaneers. 
A few years after their establishment herej a Spanish armament, 



HISTORY OF THE WEST INDIES. 469 

without any provocation, invaded them, and barbarously murdered 
all their women and children. This roused the Buccaniers to re- 
1 • nge ; and they soon became the most terrible antagonists the 
Spaniards ever encountered. Many others joined them, and they 
became formidable both from their numbers and their desperate brave- 
ry. By their means tne Spaniards lost the western part of St. Do- 
mingo, and the whole island of Jamaica, besides an almost incredible 
amount of property, and a great number of human lives. Their most 
renowned leaders were Montbars, a native of Languedoc, and Henry 
Morgan, a Welshman. The war between England and France in 
1,688, occasioned a disunion of the English and French Buccaniers, 
and greatly weakened their force, and they possessed little powei 
after the year 1,700. 

7. St. Domingo or Hayti furnishes tne most important items in 
the history of the West Indies. Spain ceded the western half of the 
island to France by the treaty of Ryswick in 1,697. It did not be- 
come a prosperous colony till thirty years after. In 1,791 an alarm* 
ing insurrection of the negroes broke out in the French colony, which 
deluged half of the northern province in blood. The next year, the 
national assembly proclaimed the political equality of the whites, 
and free people of colour. The commissioners of the French govern 
ment, in 1,793, decreed the emancipation of all the slaves in the colo- 
ny. On the 21st of June of the same year, Mocaya, a black, at the 
head cf 3,000 negroes, began an indiscriminate slaughter of the whites 
at cape Francois, and multitudes were massacred. 

8. An expedition from Jamaica in 1794-5-6, attempted to reduce 
the island, but was, each year, driven off by the yellow fever. The 
eastern half was ceded to France in 1,795, but it was of little import- 
ance to that country. In 1,801, July 1st, the blacks rose and declared 
themselves independent, but its independence was not well established 
till 1,804. The first sovereign assumed the title of Jaques I. Empe- 
ror of Hayti. He enjoyed his power but a short time, being killed 
in a conspiracy ; and was succeeded by Christophe under the title of 
Henry I. King of Hayti. His dominions were on the north part of 
the island ; the southern was occupied by a republican party, most- 
ly mulattoes, under Petion who assumed the title of President 
of Hayti. Frequent and bloody conflicts occurred between these 
two parties. On the death of Petion in 1,817, Boyer was appointed 
President ; and, on the death of Christophe, the two parties united 
under President Boyer, and have now established a very efficient 
government. He is an intelligent, energetic, and humane sovereign ; 
and his administration is highly calculated to promote the happiness 
of his subjects. In 1,808. the Spaniards, aided by the English, re- 
took the eastern part of the island, but their colony has little force, 
and lives on friendly terms with the blacks. 

9. The Caribbean Islands, when discovered, were inhabited by a 
numerous, cultivated, and powerful nation, called Caraibes or Canb- 
bees. They were more warlike than the Arrowauka. Towards each 
other they were faithful, friendly, and affectionate ; but regarded all 
strangers as enemies. They were well skilled in most of the arts of 
life : and their religion acknowledged one supreme, independent. 
Deity ; and taught a future state of retribution. Nearly all of this 
race have been "exterminated on these islands, but they stili remain 
on the continent of South America a very powerful nation. 

10. There is little else that i? -oteresting in the history of the West 
Indies, except to those who wis« to learn more of the aborigines, and 

Rr 



470 HISTORY Of SOUTH AMERICA. 

of the merciless treatment they received from tne Spaniards. A very 
minute history of these islands has been written by Edwards. 



SECTION FOURTH. 
HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 

UNITED PROVINCES. 

1 The river La Plata was discovered in 1,516. Buenos Ayres 
*vas settled in 1,535. From the settlement of the country until 1,778 
its history comprises only a series of vexations from the despotism of 
viceroys, of privations from monopolies, and commercial restrictions, 
and of sufferings from wars foreign to its interests. From this period 
to 1,781, the Indians from the upper country continually harassed 
the provinces, burnt many towns, and destroyed many of the inhabi- 
tants ; but they were at length defeated by the combined armies oi 
Buenos Ayres and Lima. 

2. In 1,806, the country was invaded by the British, and Buenos 
Ayres was taken without opposition. An army from the interior soon 
expelled them. A second attempt was made in 1,807, but the people 
beginning to acquire confidence in their own strength, attacked the 
army while in the city, and were completely successful. 

3. On the 25th of May 1,810, in consequence of the renunciation 
of Ferdinand VII. in favour of Napoleon, and the deranged state of 
affairs in Spain, a junta was convened at Buenos Ayres to take the 
government into their own hands, still administering it, however, in 
the name of Ferdinand. This was the commencement of a revolt; 
tion which delivered ihem from the slavery they had suffered foi 
nearly 300 years. Since that period, they have been in reality inde- 
pendent. 

4. Since 1,810, there have been four revolutions, each of which has 
changed the government, but there has constantly been a representa- 
tive assembly. On the 9th of July 1,816, the congress made, and 
promulgated a declaration of absolute independence. In December 
of the same year the country was invaded by the Portuguese, and a 
considerable part was conquered. It has, however, reclaimed its 
possessions, and its government has become so well established, that its 
independence has been acknowledged by other nations. 

BRAZIL. 

1. This country was discovered by Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Por- 
tuguese, in 1,500. As little gold or silver was found near the coast, 
it was for a while wholly neglected, and none but criminals and aban- 
doned women were sent hither. In 1,548, the inquisition, after plun- 
dering the Jews of their property, banished them to Brazil. A 
governor was sent over the following year, who immediately built 
St. Salvador. It was reduced in 1,624, by the Dutch, and taken 
from them in 1,625, by the Spaniards. Portugal reclaimed it in 
about 1,645, and remained in undisturbed possession of the whole 
country till the late revolutions throughout South America. 

2. In the latter part of 1,806, in consequence of the invasion of 
Portugal by the French, the royal family embarked for Brazil, under 
protection of an English squadron. Rio de Janeiro continued to be 
their residence from 1,807 till 1,821. When they left Brazil, tfeis 



HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 471 

prince royal, the king's eldest son, remained at the head of the 
government. The unsettled state of the government of the mother 
country, soon excited a revolutionary spirit in most of these provin- 
ces, and they declared for independence. The crown was offered to 
the prince royal, and accepted under the title of emperor. 

GUIANA. 

The history of these colonies presents little worth relating. They 
have frequently changed masters, but with little detriment or advan- 
tage. Their present situation is well known from common geogra- 
phies. A great part of the country is occupied by Indians. Of these, 
the Caraibes are the most numerous, brave, warlike, and industrious. 

REPUBLIC OF COLOMBIA. 

1. New-Granada originally constituted a part of Peru. Two au- 
diences were erected in 1,547, the one at Panama, the other at Santa 
Fe de Bogota, and the territories under the jurisdiction of both, con- 
stituted a captain-generalship. Quito was made the seat of an audi- 
ence in 1,563, but the territories belonging to it, still remained attached 
to Peru. In 1,718, New-Granada was erected into a vicer^yalty ; 
Quito and Venezuela were annexed to it, and the audiences of Pana- 
ma and Quito were abolished. These weue afterwards restored, ahd 
in 1,739, the territories dependent on the three audiences of Panama^ 
Santa Fe, and Quito, were again erected into a viceroyalty. A con- 
gress assembled at Carthagena in Nov. 1,811, and declared the coun- 
try independent, but it was afterwards reclaimed by the royalists, 

2. Venezuela was discovered by Columbus in 1,498. After several 
ineffectual attempts to settle it by missionaries, it was finally reduced 
oy force, and assigned by Charles V. to the Welsers, a German mer- 
cantile house. Their administration was so tyrannical, that they 
were dispossessed in 1,550, and a supreme governor was appointed 
by the king of Spain. From this period till 1,806, it remained in 
quiet subjection to the mother country. 

3. In 1,806, general Miranda, a native of Caraccas, placed himself 
at the head of an expedition, fitted out partly at St. Domingo, and part- 
ly at New-York, with the design of liberating this country from the 
Spanish yoke. Finding his force inadequate, he abandoned his men 
to the mercy of the provincial government. 

4. In 1,811, the inhabitants revolted from the Spanish yoke, and 
declared themselves independent. The declaration bears date July 
5th. 1,811, exactly 35 years and one day after that of the United 
States. This revolution, like that of the United Provinces, was 
caused by the disorders in Spain. This country and New-Granada, 
continued in a revolutionary state till 1,819, when they both achieved 
their indenendence under the renowned Bolivar. 

5. On tfie 17th of Dec. 1,819, the congress of Venezuela, at St. 
Thomas of Angostura, made a declaration of the fundamental law of 
union of the Republic of Colombia. On the 17th of July 1,821, the 
representatives of New-Granada and Venezuela, in general congress 
at the city of Rosario de Cucuta, declared the following among others, 
fundamental laws of the union of the people of Colombia ; That the 
people of New-Granada and Venezuela be united in one body as a 
nation, under the name of the Republic of Colombia ; That the govern- 
ment be popular and representative ; The nation free, and indepen- 
dent of the Spanish monarchy, as well as of all other powers ; 1 hat 



472 HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 

the government consist of legislative, executive, and judiciary au- 
thorities ; That the territory be divided into six departments, having 
an administration dependent on the national government ; That when 
the state of the nation shall admit, a new city snail be founded, as the 
capital of the Republic, which shall bear the name of the liberator 
Bolivar, the site to be determined by congress ; That there be an 
annual festival of three days on the 25th, 26th, and 27th of Dec. 
The constitution resembles 'that of the United States. Since its adop- 
tion the country has been prosperous, and its independence seems to 
be firmly established. 

PERU. 

1. A few tribes inhabiting this country had made considerable ad- 
vances in civilization when it was first visited by the Spaniards. 
Being destitute of the art of writing, the early history of the Ameri- 
can Indians exists only in tradition. There were indeed some 
records preserved by the Mexicans and Peruvians, but these were 
mostly destroyed by their conquerors, and the few that remained 
were not very intelligible to the Spaniards. Some credit however 
must be given to the tradition of the kingdom established at Cuzco, 
in order to account for its great superiority over others. 

2. The story is as follows : — Peru was originally possessed by small 
independent tribes, all of which were strangers to almost every spe- 
cies of cultivation or regular industry, without any fixed residence, 
and roamed about naked in the forests. After they had struggled for 
several ages with the hardships and calamities which are inevitable 
in such a state, and when no circumstance seemed to indicate the ap- 
proach of any uncommon effort towards improvement, there is said 
to have appeared on the banks of the lake Titicaca, a man md wo- 
man of majestic form, and clothed in decent garments. They de- 
clared themselves children of the Sun, sent by their beneficent parent, 
who beheld with pity the miseries of the human race, to instruct and 
to reclaim them. The Peruvians worshipped the Sun ; and, there- 
fore, the commands of these strangers were regarded as heavenly in- 
junctions. Several of the dispersed savages united together, and 
followed their guides to Cuzco, where they settled and began to lay 
the foundation of a city. 

3. Manco Capac and Mama Ocollo, for such were the names of 
those extraordinary personages, having thus united some wandering 
tribes, formed that social union, which by multiplying the desires, 
and uniting the efforts of the human species, excites industry, and 
leads to improvement. Manco Capac instructed the men in agricul- 
ture, and other useful arts ; Mama Ocollo taught the women to spin 
and weave. The blessings of civilized life were gradually extended 
to neighbouring tribes, and the dominions of succeeding chiefs, called 
Incas, or Children of the Sun, comprised all the regions west of the 
Andes from Chili to Quito. 

4. To preserve the succession of the Incas pure and unpolluted by 
mixture with less noble blood, the sons of Manco Capac married 
their own sisters. As these Incas assumed the rank not only of legis- 
lators, but messengers from Heaven, the whole system of civil policy 
was founded on religion. Their precepts were received as mandates 
of the Deity. Hence their authority was unlimited and absolute 
in the most extensive meaning of the words. All crimes were con- 
sidered not only as violations of civil duty, but as insults offered to 



HISTOKY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 473 

the Deity ; and they were all punished capitally. But so great was 
the veneration for the Incas, that the number of offendeis was ex- 
tremely small. The genius of their religion was exceedingly mild, 
and as divine authority was ascribed to the Incas, the minds of the 
people were not humbled and depressed by a forced subjection to 
the will of a superior ; and obedience implied no degradation. 

5. Thus during twelve successive reigns this happy nation ad- 
vanced in knowledge and virtue, in wealth and power, and m all the 
essential arts of civilized life. Agriculture was in a state of high 
improvement ; architecture was advanced to a state equal to their 
wants ; their roads, bridges, and manufactures ; their use of gold and 
silver for utensils and works of ornament, all bear testimony that they 
had advanced far above the common state of savage life. Bat there 
was no very distinct arrangement of professions ; no cities were es- 
tablished except Cuzco, to give activity to commerce ; they knew 
not the use of iron, and hence were little qualified to work in wood 
and stone ; they appear to have had no good method for lighting theii 
houses, — to have been ignorant of the construction of arches, — of every 
convenient method of recording events, and of perpetuating the 
knowledge they possessed. 

6. When the Spaniards first visited Peru in 1,526, Huana Capac* 
the twelfth Inca, was seated on the throne. He is represented ass 
eminent for his virtues, his knowledge, and his military talents. He 
had subjected the kingdom of Quito and added it to his dominions. 
He was fond of residing in the capital of that province ; and contrary 
to the fundamental law of the monarchy, he married the daughter of 
the vanquished monarch of Quito. She bore him a sonname^ Ata- 
hualpa, whom at his death, whicn seems to haveoccured about the. 
year 1,529, he appointed his successor toQui to, leaving the rest of his 
dominions to Huascar, his eldest son. This was no sooner known at 
Cuzco, than it excited general disgust. The Peruvians were shocked 
at this violation of a fundamental law, coeval with the empire, and 
founded on sacred authority. Huascar was hence encouraged to re- 
quire of his brother to renounce the government of Quito ; but Ata- 
hualpa had a large part of the Peruvian army under his control, and 
was little inclined to yield to the demand. Hence arose a civil 
war, which continued to rage until Pizarro with his cruel and per- 
fidious band, came among them in 1,532. 

7. The Spaniards, availing themselves of the existing dissensions, 
found the conquest easily attainable. Both the Incas were put to 
death under circumstances of most awful barbarity. No language 
can describe the detestable cruelties of these graceless invaders. A 
few, indeed, among them were found to protest against it, but in the 
heart of Pizarro, the common feelings of humanity had been ab~olute- 
ly annihilated by his avarke. Cuzco furnished more valuable spoil 
than was ever found in any other city. The whole country was soon 
subjected ; and its mines were seized in the name of the kirg of Spain. 

8. Since 1,533, Peru has remained a Spanish province, subject to a 
viceroy. Fcr the form of government in all the Spanish provinces in 
America, see Sec. I. Part V. The country is now much smaller 
than when governed by the Incas. In 1,718, Quito on the north as 
far as the river Tumbez, was annexed to New-Granada ; and in 1,778, 
Potosi and other rich districts on the southeast were annexed to Bue- 
nos Ayres. 

f. For several years Peru has been in a revolutionary state. The 
lea 'tr of the patriots is Jose San Martin. The capital has several 
Rr2 60 



474 HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 

times fallen into their hands, but has been retaken by the royalists. 
Their prospect for independence is yearly increasing*, and the royal- 
ists now possess only a small part of Upper Peru. This is the only 
territory now possessed by the Spaniards on the continent of America. 
It cannot be many years before the New World which they discovered, 
and which has suffered so much from their rapacity and tyranny, will 
be completely wrested from their cruel despotism. 

CHILI. 

1. We know nothing of the history of Chili previous to the middle 
of the fifteenth century. From the Peruvian annals it appears that 
Yupanqui, the tenth Inca, made an attempt to subject the Chilese. 
He met with little opposition till he anived as far as the river Repel. 
Beyond this was a formidable nation named Promaucians or free dan- 
cers. In a long battie they were successful, completely routed the 
Peruvians, and drove them from their territories. The Inca imposed 
an annual tribute of gold on the conquered tribes, but no innovation 
was attempted, either in their customs, manners, or government. 

2. The country was invaded by the Spaniards under Almagro in 
1,535. He left Cuzco with 570 Spaniards and 15,000 Peruvian aux- 
iliaries. Disregarding the remonstrances of hrs confederates, he 
preferred passing the Cordilleras, to the entrance, less dangerous at 
that season, by the desert of Atacama. Winter had commenced 
when they reached the Cordillera Nevada, and the snow fell in such 
abundance, and t»he cold was so intense, that not less than 10,000 Pe- 
ruvians and 150 Spaniards perished. In a second expedition Alma- 
gro found the natives exceedingly friendly. They looked up to the 
Spaniards as beings of a superior order, and were ready to yield sub 
mission. But when they arrived among the Promaucians, they met 
with such powerful resistance, as determined them to abandon the 
enterprise. 

3. Returning to Cuzco a contest ensued between Almagro and 
Pizarro, in which the former was slain. Pizarro, now sole master of 
Peru, determined on the conquest of Chili. He entrusted the expe- 
dition to Valdivia, one of the ablest generals among the Spanish ad- 
venturers. He met with very inveterate animosity from a 1 ! the tribes, 
but their opposition was too feeble to arrest the progress of 2,000 
Spaniards, under such a leader. Having overcome the Mapochinians 
who resided on the river Mapocho, he laid the foundation of St. Jago 
and erected a strong citadel for protection. The natives continued 
for six years their feeble attempts to regain their beautiful plain, but 
finding their object hopeless, the few that remained destroyed their 
crops, and retired to the mountains. Valdivia, having received a 
reinforcement from Peru, invaded and conquered the JPromaucians, 
and established colonies in many places. Endeavouring to penetrate 
still farther southward, he encountered the most formidable enemy 
which the Spaniards ever met with in America. This was the na- 
tion of the Araucanians. He gained some victories over them, but 
was frequently repulsed, and at length was completely defeated, him- 
self taken prisoner, and his whole army slain, with the exception of 
two Promaucian auxiliaries. Villagran, the successor of Valdivia, 
made a desperate attempt to revenge the death of that favourite 
general, but was repulsed with great slaughter. He was, how- 
ever, successful in a very important subsequent engagement, in which 
Lautaro, the Araucanian general, was slain. 

4. The contest continued for several years with various success, 



HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 475 

till the Araucanians were mruch enfeebled. They have not, however, 
been conquered, and they retain to this day a considerable part of 
their ancient territories. They preserve their ancient customs and 
language in a considerable degree of purity- There are few lan- 
guages so regular in their structure, or so copious in their inflections, 
as the Araucaman. They had made considerable advancement in 
civilization, were remarkably active and energetic in their bodily and 
mental habits, generous and dignified in their disposition and deport- 
ment. Connected with the perfection of their language, was their 
habit of cultivating the art of oratory ; and we know very few civilized 
nations that have so faithfully observed the common duties of charity. 

5. From the period of the conquest of Chili till its revolution in 
1,810, few occurrences of much interest are recorded. At this time 
the Chilese, finding the same embarrassments which were suffered by 
other provinces on account of the disorders in Spain, took the govern- 
ment into their own hands, — still holding out the idea, however, of a 
reunion with the mother country when circumstances would permit. 
In 1,814, the royal troops from Peru invaded Chili, entirely defeated 
the patriots at Kaneagua, and reconquered the country. A remnant 
of the patriot forces fled over the Andes, where, with other Chilian 
refugees and two regiments of negroes, and some officers, they were 
reorganized by general San Martin under the name of the United Army 
of the Andes. In 1,817, they re-entered Chili, entirely vanquished 
the royal troops at Chacabuco, and restored independence to the 
country. The passage of this army over the Andes with its artillery, 
deserves to be ranked among the most celebrated achievements re- 
corded in history. It was effected with the loss of about 5,000 horses t 
and mules, and a small number of men who perished with the cold. 

6. On the 12th of February 1,818, the nation made a formal declara- 
tion of absolute independence. The royal troops who escaped from 
the battle of Chacabuco being reinforced by all the royal forces ; n 
Peru, about 5,000 in number, renewed the contest wilh the patriots ; 
but after a temporary success, they were finally defeated in the de- 
cisive battle of Maypo, April 5th, 1,818. This event is celebrated 
by the Chilese in their songs, festivals, and histories, with the most 
enthusiastic expressions of gratitude and admiration. 

7. The government established in Chili is republican. Education 
is making considerable progress, and every ray of light confirms the 
people more absolutely in the love of liberty. Their independence 
is acknowledged by other nations. They live in amity with the 
Araucanians, Who have a minister at the capital. Were they exempt 
from the tyranny of the Catholic religion, we might regard them as 
destined to oecome a great and happy nation ; but while this exists, 
they will make slow progress in that real knowledge which can result 
only from the free use of the faculties, with which Heaven has en- 
dowed the children of men. 

8. Too much can hardly be said in praise of the disinterestedness, 
prudence, bravery, and steady perseverance of Don Jose San Martin, 
in maintaining the cause of South American independence. Fond of 
the retirement of private life, he has uniformly laid aside the high digni- 
ties with which the grateful patriots of Chili, Buenos Ayres, and 
Peru, have repeatedly invested him, wrenever the good of their cause 
would permit it ; and, although in times of such public excitement. 
the best men are subject to suspicion, e.nvy, and slander, we have 
good reason for ranking this distinguished veteran among those, who 
regard not their own, tut the public good. 



476 HISTORY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 

9 Nor is that distinguished hero and statesman, Bolivar, entitled 
to less renown. To him the Republic of Colombia principally oweg 
its independence, and he has been one of its most efficient agents m 
organizing the new government. He is now President ot the Re- 
public ; and, his career not being closed, we cannot decide on the 
rank to which his whole life will entitle him ; but he has hitherto trod 
in the footsteps of the Leader of the first American Revolution, and 
if he persist in this course to the end, his name will be ranked by pos- 
terity with that of Washington. 1 825. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



EXPLANATION OF THE TABLE OF CHRONOLOGY 

To give a distinct view of the succession of princes in the chief empires 
or kingdoms, without employing different columns, (which distracts the 
attention, and occupies too much space,) the series of the sovereigns of 
different nations is distinguished in this table by different typographical 
characters. By this method the succession of the sovereigns in the different 
kingdoms is immediately distinguishable, and also the duration of their 
reigns. In the intervals of time between every two successive reigns are 
recorded the remarkable events which occurred in those periods, in all parts 
brok ' thus the connexion of general history is preserved un- 

The series of the kings and emperors of Rome is printed in a larger Ro- 
man type than the rest of the table : as, 6 

1 4 Tiberius, Emperor of Rome 

The series of the popes is distinguishable by this character t prefixed to 
eacii name; as, 

1513 U Pope Leo X. 
The names of the emperors of Germany are printed in Italic capitals; as, 

887 ARJYOLD, Emperor of Germany. 
The kings of England are designated by the black Saxon type; as, 

1066 SWf litam (the Conqueror) king of England. 
The kings of Scotland are denoted by a larger capital beginning ili9 

1390 Robert III., king of Scotland. 
The kings of France are distinguished by the Italic type; as, 

1498 Lewis XII., king of France. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



B. C. 

1004 The Creation of the World, according to the Hebrew text of the 
Scriptures. 

According to the version of the Septuagint 5872. 

Acording to the Samaritan version 4700. 
2348 The Universal Deluge. 

2247 The Building of Babel; the Dispersion of Mankind; and the Confu- 
sion of Languages. 
2217 Nimrod supposed to have built Babylon, and founded the Babylonish 

Monarchy ; and Assur to have built Nineveh, and founded the 

Monarchy of Assyria. 
2188 Menes (in Scripture Misraim) founds the Monarchy of Egypt. 
2084 The Shepherd Kings conquer Egypt. 
2040 Moeris King of Thebes and Memphis in Egypt. 
1996 The Birth of Abram. 

1897 Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by lire from Heaven. 
1896 Isaac born. 

1856 Inachus founds the Kingdom of Argos in Greece. 
1836 Jacob and Esau born. 
1825 The Shepherd Kings abandon Egypt. 
1823 Death of Abraham. 
1796 The Deluge of Ogyges in Attica. 
1 722 Sesostris or Rameses King of Egypt. 
1635 Joseph dies in Egypt. 

1582 The Chronology of the Arundelian Marbles begins with this year. 
1571 Moses born in Egypt. 
1556 Cecrops founds the kingdom of Athens. 
1546 Scamander founds the Kingdom of Troy. 
1532 Judgment of the Areopagus between Mars and Neptune, two princes 

of Thessaly. 
1529 The Deluge of Deucalion in Thessaly. 
1522 The Council of the Amphictyons instituted. 
1520 Corinth built. 

1506 Erectheus or Erycthonius institutes the Panathenaean Games. 
1493 Cadmus builds Thebes, and introduces Letters into Greece. 
1491 Moses brings the Israelites out of Egypt. 
1453 The first Olympic Games celebrated in Greece. 
1452 The Pentateuch, or five Books of Moses, written. 
1451 The Israelites led into the land of Canaan by Joshua 
1438 Pandion King of Athens. 

1406 Minos reigns in Crete, and gives laws to the Cretans. 
1376 Sethos reigns in Egypt. 
1322 Belus reigns in Babylon. 
1267 Ninus reigns in Assyria. 

1266 Oedipus marries his Mother Jocasta, and reigns in Thebes. 
1263 The Argonautic Expedition. According to the Newtonian Chronoi 

ogy 937. 
1257 Theseus unites the Cities of Attica. 
1252 Tyre, the capital of Phoenicia, built. 
1225 Siege of Thebes. War between Eteocles and Polyi 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 479 

B.C. 

1225 Eurysthenes and Procles Kings of Lacedtemon. 
1915 Second War of Thebes, or War of the Epigonoi. 

Semiramis supposed to have reigned at Babylon. 

1207 Gideon Judge of Israel. 

1202 Teuccr built Salamis. 

1193 The Trojan War begins. 

1184 Troy taken and burnt by the Greeks. According to the Arundelian 

Marbles 1209. 
1182 iEneas lands in Italy. 
1155 Samson born. 

1104 Return of the Heraclidse into Peloponnesus. 
1099 Samuel delivers Israel. 
1079 Saul King of Israel. 
1070 Medon first Archon of Athens. 

1069 Codrus King of Athens devotes himself for his country. 
1055 David King of Israel. 
1004 Dedication of Solomon's Temple. 

980 Rehoboam King of Israel. 

889 Athaliah, wife of Jehoram, usurps the throne of Judah. 

886 Homer's Poems brought from Asia into Greece. 

884 Lycurgus reforms the Constitution of Laceda?mon. 

869 The city of Carthage built by Dido. 

820 Nineveh taken by Arbaces and Belesis, which finishes that kingdom. 

776 The first Olympiad begins in this year. 

769 Syracuse built by Archias of Corinth. 

767 Sardanapalus King of Assyria. 

760 The Ephori, popular Magistrates, instituted at Lacedaemon 

757 Halyattes King of Lydia. 

754 Decennial Archons elected at Athens. 

752 The foundation of Rome by Romulus. 

748 Rape of the Sabine Women. 

747 The Era of Nabonassar made use of by Ptolemy. 

738 Candaules King of Lydia. 

724 Hezekiah tenth King of Judah. 

721 Salmanazar takes Samaria, and carries the Ten Tribes into captivity, 
which puts an end to the Israelitish Kingdom. 

715 Numa Pompilius second King of Rome. 

711 Sennacherib, King of Assyria, invades Judea. 

710 Dejoces King of Media. 

708 Habakkuk prophesied. 

703 Corcyra founded by the Corinthians. 

696 Manasseh sixteenth King of Judah. 

688 Judith kills Holofernes the Assyrian General. 

684 Annual Archons elected at Athens. 

681 Esarhaddon unites the Kingdoms of Babylon and Assyria. 

672 Tullus Hostilius third King of Rome. 

670 Psammeticus King of Egypt. 

667 The Combat between the Horatii and Curiatii. 

658 Byzantium founded by Pausanias King of Sparta 

Phraortes King of Media. 

640 Ancus Martius fourth King of Rome 
627 The Forty Years of Ezekiel began. 
626 Periander Tyrant of Corinth. 

— Nabopolassar, father of Nebuchadnezzar, begins to reign at Babylon. 
624 Draco Arcbon and Legislator of Athens. 

616 Tarquinius Priscus fifth King of Rome. 

606 Nebuchadnezzar takes Jerusalem, and carries the Jews into captivity. 
601 Battle between the Medes and Lydians, who are separated by a great 
eclipse ot the sun, predicted by Thales. (Newton. Chron. 585.) 



480 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

B.C. 

C01 End of the Assyrian Empire. Nineveh taken by Nebuchadnezzar 

600 Jeremiah prophesied. 

599 Birth of Cyrus the Great. 

594 Solon Archon and Legislator of Athens. 

578 Servius Tullius sixth King of Rome. 

572 Nebuchadnezzar subdues Egypt. 

571 Phalaris Tyrant of Agrigentum. 

562 Comedies first exhibited at Athens by Thespis. 

Croesus reigns in Lydia. 

551 Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher, born. 

550 Pisistratus Tyrant of Athens. 

548 The Ancient Temple of Delphos burnt by the Pisistratidae. 

538 Babylon taken by Cyrus. End of the Babylonian Empire. 

536 Cyrus ascends the throne of Persia. He puts an end to the Jewish 

captivity, which had lasted seventy years. 
534 Tarquinius Sliperbus seventh King of Rome. 

Daniel prophesied. 

529 Death of Cyrus the Great. Cambyses King of Persia. 

Death of Pisistratus Tyrant of Athens. 

522 Darius, son of Hystaspes, King of Persia. 

520 The Jews begin to build the second Temple, which is finished in four 

years. 
510 The Pisistratidae expelled from Athens, and the Democracy restored. 

Statues erected at Athens to Harmodius and Aristogiton. 

509 The Tarquins expelled from Rome and the Regal Government abol 

ished. 
508 The first Alliance between the Romans and Carthaginians. 
504 Sardis taken and burnt by the Athenians. 
498 The first Dictator created at Rome (Lartius.) 
497 Institution of the Saturnalia at Rome 
493 The port of Piraeus built by the Athenians. 

490 The Battle of Marathon, ifi which Miltiades defeats the Persians. 
488 The first Tribunes of the People created at Rome. According to 

Blair 493. 

Miltiades dies in prison. 

486 Xerxes succeeds his father Darius in the kingdom of Persia. 
485 Coriolanus banished from Rome. 
483 Quaestors instituted at Rome. 

Aristides banished from Athens by the Ostracism. 

480 The Spartans, under Leonidas, slain at Thermopylae. 

Naval Victory gained by the Greeks over the Persians at Salamis 

479 Attica laid waste and Athens burnt by Mardonius. 

Victories over the Persians at Plataea and MycaJe. 

Xerxes leaves Greece. 

477 300 Fabii killed by the Veientes. 
476 Themistocles rebuilds Athens. 

Valerius triumphs over the Veientes and Sabines. 

The Roman Citizens numbered at 103,000. 

A great Eruption of iEtna. 

Hiero King of Syracuse. 

471 Volero, the Roman Tribune, obtains a law for the election of magif 

trates in the comitia held by tribes. 
479 Cimon, son of Miltiades, defeats the Persian army and fleet in onv 

day, at the mouth of the river Eurymedon. 
469 Capua founded by the Tuscans. 
464 Artaxerxes (Longimanus) King of Persia. 

Cimon banished by the Ostracism. 

463 Egypt revolts from the Persians. 

462 The Terentian Law proposed at Rome. 
456 Cincinnatus Dictator at Rome. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 49 

B.C. 

456 The Ludi Sacu ares first instituted at Rome. 

455 Commencemant of the Seventy Prophetical Weeks of Daniel. 

453 The number of the Tribunes of the people at Rome increased from 

Five to Ten. 
452 The two Books of Chronicles supposed to have been written at this 

time by Ezra. 
451 Creation of the Decemviri at Rome, and Compilation of the Laws of 

the Twelve Tables. 
449 Peace between the Greeks and Persians concluded by Cimon, glorious 

for Greece. 

Death of Virginia, and Abolition of the Decemvirate. 

445 The Law of Canuleius for the Intermarriage of the Patricians and 
Plebeians at Rome. 
Military Tribunes created. 
437 The Censorship first instituted at Rome. 
436 Pericles in high power at Athens. 
432 Meton's Cycle of the Moon of nineteen years. 
431 The Peloponnesian War begins, which lasted twenty-seven years 
430 The History of the Old Testament ends about this time. 

Great Plague at Athens, eloquently described by Thucydides. 

Malachi the last of the Prophets. 

428 Death of Pericles. 

423 Darius Neth s King of Persia. 

418 Disturbances at Rome on account of the Agrarian Law. 

414 The Athenians defeated before Syracuse. 

413 Alcibiades, accused at Athens, flies to the Lacedaemonians. 

412 A Council of 400 governs Athens. 

405 Lysander defeats the Athenians at iEgos Potamos. 

404 Artaxerxes II. (Mnemon) King of Persia. 

End ct the Peloponnesian War. 

403 Lysandei takes Athens. Government of the Thirty Tyrants. 
401 The younger Cyrus dftfeated by his brother Artaxerxes, and killed 
- — Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks. 

Persecution and Death of Socrates. 

Thrasybulus drives out the Thirty Tyrants, and delivers Athens 

399 A Lectisternium first celebrated at Rome. 

397 The Lake of Alba drained by the Romans. 
396 Syracuse unsuccessfully besieged by the Carthaginians. 
391 Marcus Furius Camillus Dictator at Rome. Veii taken. 
387 Dishonourable Peace of Antalcidas between the Spartans and Per 
sians. 

385 Rome taken by the Gauls under Brennus. 

382 Phaebidas, the Spartan, seizes the Citadel of Thebes. 

380 Pelopidas and Epaminondas deliver Thebes from the Lacedaemonians. 

371 Battle of Leuctra, in which the Lacedaemonians are defeated by the 

Thebans under Epaminondas. 
364 Pelopidas defeats the Tyrant of Pfieraea, but is killed in battle. 
363 Battle of Matinea, in which Epaminondas is killed. 
362 Curtius leaps into a Gulf in the Forum at Rome. 
361 Darius Ochus (or Artaxe? s III.) King of Persia. According to 

Blair, 358. 
358 War of the Allies against Athens. 

Philip of Macedon takes Amphipolis, Pydna, and Potidea. 

357 Dion overcomes tho party of Dionysius at Syracuse. 

386 Alexander the Great born at Pella in Macedonia. 

The Temple of Diana, at Ephesus, burnt by Erostratus. 

The Phocian or Sacred War begins in Greece. 

Philip conquers the Thracians, Paeonians, and Illyrians. 

350 Darius Ochus subdues Egypt. 

248 Philip of Macedon takes Olynihus. 

Ss 61 



482 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

B.C. 

343 End of the Sacred War. 

347 Dionysius restored at Syracuse, after an exile of ten years. 
346 Philip admitted a Member of the Amphictyonic Council. 
343 Syracuse taken by Timoleon, and Dionysius the Tyrant finally ban 
ished. 

- The War between the Romans and Samnites, which led to the con 

quest of all Italy. 
340 The Carthaginians defeated near Agrigentum. 

P. Decius devotes himself for his country. 

338 Battle of Cheronsea gained by Philip over the Athenians and Thebans 
337 Philip chosen Generalissimo of the Greeks. 
33G Philip murdered by Pausanias. 

Alexander the Great King of Macedon. 

- — Alexander the Great destroys Thebes. 
335 Darius III. (Codomannus) King of Persia. 

Alexander chosen Generalissimo by the States of Greece. 

334 Alexander defeats the Persians on the banks of th.3 Gjetc. s 
333 The Persians defeated by Alexander at Issus. 

332 Alexander conquers Egypt, and takes Tyre. 

331 Darius defeated by Alexander at Arbela. 

330 Darius Codomannus killed. End of the Persian Empire. 

- Alexander takes possession of Susa, and sets fire to the Palace of 

Persepolis. 
328 Alexander passes into India, defeats Porus, founds several citie*^ 
penetrates to the Ganges. 

The Voyag« of Nearchus from the Indus to the Euphrates. 

325 Papirius Cursor, Dictatoi at Rome, triumphs over the Samnites. 
324 Alexander the Great dies at Babylon, at the age of thirty-three. 

321 The Samnites make the Roman Army pass under the yoke at 

Caudium. 
320 Ptolemy carries 100,000 Jews captives into Egypt. 
317 Agathocles Tyrant of Syracuse. 
312 Era of the Selucidae. 
311 Cassander, Lysimachus, and Ptolemy, conclude a peace with Antig- 

onus. 
304 Demetrius besieges Rhodes. 

303 Demetrius restores the Greek Cities to their liberty. 
301 Battle of Ipsus in Phrygia, in which Antigonus ia defeated and slain. 

Fabiug Maximus and Valerius Corvus Dictators. 

300 Seleucus founds Antioch, Edessa, and Laodicea. 
298 Athens taken by Demetrius Poliorcetes. 

294 Seleucus resigns his Wife Stratonice to nis son Antiochus. 

286 Law of Hortensius, by which the decrees of the people were allowed 

the same force as those of the senate. 
285 The Astronomical Era of Dionysius of Alexandria. 
284 Ptolemy Philadelphus King of Egypt. 
283 The Library of Alexandria founded. 
281 Commencement of the Achaean League. 
280 Pyrrhus invades Italy. 

Antiochus Soter King of Syria. 

277 The Translation of the Septuagint made by order of Ptolemy Phila- 
delphus. Playfair, 285 

- Antigonus Gonatus reigned in Macedon thirty-six years. 
275 Pyrrhus unsuccessful against the Carthaginians in Sicily. 

274 Pyrrhus, totally defeated by the Romans near Beneventum, evacuate* 

Italy. 
272 The Samnites finally subdued by the Romans. 
266 Silver Money is coined at Rome fbr the first time. 
265 The Citizens of Rome numbered at 292,224. 
264 The first Punic War begins. The Chronicle of Paros composed 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 468 

B.C. 

260 Provincial Quaestors instituted at Rome. 

First Naval Victory obtained by the Romans under the Consul Duilius. 

255 Regulus defeated and taken prisoner by the Carthaginians under 

Xantippus 
253 Manasseh chosen High Priest of the Jews. 
251 Great Victory of Metellus over Asdrubal. 
250 The Romans besiege Lilyboeum ; are defeated by Hamilcar. 
241 End of the first Punic War. 

Attalus King of Pergamus succeeds Eumenes. 

240 Comedies are first acted at Rome. 

235 The Temple of Janus shut the first time since the reign of Numa. 

228 Hamilcar killed in Spain. 

225 Great Victory of the Romans over the Gauls. 

219 Hannibal takes Saguntum. 

218 The second Punic War begins. 

217 Hannibal defeats the Romans under Flaminius. 

Fabius Maximus Dictator. 

216 Battle of Cannae, in which the Romans are totally defeated by Han- 
nibal. 
212 Philip II. of Macedon defeats the ^Etolians. 

Marcellus takes Syracuse, after a siege of two years. 

211 Capua surrenders to the Romans. 

Antiochus the Great conquers Judaea. 

210 Asdrubal vanquished in Spain by the Scipios. 

Publius Scipio, sent into Spain, takes New-Carthage. 

206 Philopoemen Praetor of the Achaeans. 

203 The Carthaginians recall Hannibal to Africa. 

Sophonisba poisoned by Massinissa. 

201 Syphax led in triumph to Rome by P. Scipio. 

197 Philip defeated by the Romans at Cynocephale. 

196 The Battle of Zama, and end of the second Punic War. 

190 The Romans enter Asia, and defeat Antigonus at Magnesia. 

183 The elder Cato Censor at Rome. 

173 War between the Romans and Perseus King of Macedon. 

172 Antiochus defeats the generals of Ptolemy in Egypt. 

170 Antiochus Epiphanes takes and plunders Jerusalem. 

169 Terence's Comedies performed at Rome. 

167 Perseus defeated by Paulus iEmilius, and brought prisoner to Rome 

End of the kingdom of Macedon. 
166 Judas Maccabeus drives the Syrians out of Judea. 
164 The Roman Citizens numbered at 327,032. 
149 The third Punic War begins. 
147 Metellus defeats the Achaeans. 
146 Corinth taken by the Consul Mummius. 

Carthage taken and destroyed by the Romans. 

137 The Romans shamefully defeated by the Numantines. 
135 The History of the Apocrypha ends. 

Antiochus besieges Jerusalem. 

133 Tiberius Gracchus put to death. 

- Numantia taken. Pergamus becomes a Roman Province. 
121 Caius Gracchus killed. 

113 Carbo the Consul drives the Cimbri and Teutones out of Italy. 

Ill The Jugurthine War begins. 

108 Marius defeats Jugurtha. 

103 Jugurtha starved to death at Rome. 

102 Marius defeats the Teutones and Cimbri. 

91 The War of the Allies against the Romans. 

90 Svlla defeats the Marsi, Peligni, Samnites, &C. 

89 The Mithridatic War begins. 

88 Civil War between Marius and Sylla. Sylla takej pOMMBQB MOM 



484 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

B. C. 

86 Mithridates Bang of Pontus defeated by Sylla. 

83 Sylla defeats Norbanus. The Capitol burnt. 

82 Sylla perpetual Dictator. His horrible Proscription. 

80 Julius Caesar makes his first Campaign. 

79 Cicero's first Oration for Roscius. 

78 Sylla resigns all power, and dies. 

77 The War of Sertorius. 

72 Lucullus repeatedly defeats Mithridates, and reduces Pontus to a 

Roman province. 
70 Crassus and Pompey chosen Consuls at Rome. 
63 Victories of Pompey. He takes Jerusalem, and restores Hyrcanw» o 

the government of Judea. 
62 Catiline's Conspiracy quelled at Rome by Cicero. 
61 Pompey enters Rome in triumph. 
69 The first Triumvirate j Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar. 

— Caesar proposes a new Agrarian Law. 

58 Clodius the Tribune procures the Banishment of Cicero. 
57 Caesar defeats Ariovistus in Gaul. 

— Cicero brought back from Exile with high honour. 
55 Caesar lands in Britain, and makes a short campaign. 

54 Caesar invades Britain a second time, and conquers part of it 
53 Crassus killed in Mesopotamia. 

52 Milo defended by Cicero for the slaughter of Clodius. 
49 Caesar passes the Rubicon, and marches to Rome. 

— Commencement of the Era of Antioch, October, 49 A. C. 
48 Battle of Pharsalia, in which Pompey is defeated. 

— Pompey slain in Egypt. 

— The Alexandrian Library of 400,000 volumes burnt. 
46 Cato besieged in Utica, kills himself. 

45 The Kalendar reformed by Julius Caesar, by introducing the Solat 

Year instead of the Lunar The first Julian Year began January 1, 

45 A. C. 
44 Julius Caesar Kiuea in the Senate-House. 
— Octavius, grand-nephew and heir of Julius Caesar, comes to Rome, 

and is opposed at first by Antony. 
43 Second Triumvirate ; Octavius, Mark Antony, and Lepidus. 
42 Battle of Philippi, in which Brutus and Cassius are defeated. 
40 Herod marries Mariamne, daughter of Hyrcanus, and obtains from tho 

Romans the Government of Judaea. 
34 Antony divides Armenia among the children of Cleopatra. 
33 Mauritania reduced into a Roman Province. 
32 War declared by the Senate against Antony and Cleopatra. 
31 Battle of Actium and end of the Roman Commonwealth. 

— Octavius Emperor of Rome. 

30 Death of Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Alexandria token by Octa- 
vius. 
Octavius receives the title of Augustus. 
23 Death of Marcellus. Agrippa in Spain. 
20 Porus King of India sends an Embassy to Augustus. 
17 Agustus revives the Secular Games. 
15 The Rhaeti and Vindelenci defeated by Drusus. 
10 The Temple of Janus shut by Augustus for a short time. 

8 Augustus corrects an Error of the Roman Kalendar. 
- Death of Maecenas. 

5 Augustus ordains a Census of all the people in the Roman Empire. 
4 JESUS CHRIST is born four years before the commencemcm of the 
vulgar era. 
A.D. 

9 The Roman Legions under Varus, destroyed in Germany • 
«* Ovid the Poet banished to Tomos. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 485 

A.D. 

14 Tiberius Emperor of Rome. 
19 Germanicus dies at Antioch. 

— Tiberius banishes the Jews from Rome. 

58 John the Baptist preaches in Judaea the Coming of the Messi 
27 Tiberius retires to the island of Capreae. 

— Pilate made Governor of Judaea. 

31 Sejanus disgraced, and put to death by Tiberius 
33 IT St. Peter first Pope. 

— JESUS CHRIST is crucified. 
35 The Conversion of St. Paul. 
37 Caligula Emperor of Rome. 

39 St. Matthew writes his Gospel. 

40 The name of Christians first given to the Disciples of Christ at An* 

tioch. 

41 Claudius Emperor of Rome. 

— Herod persecutes the Christians, and imprisons Peter. 

42 Sergius Paulus, proconsul, converted by St. Paul. 

43 Expedition of Claudius into Britain. 

44 St. Mark writes his Gospel. 

45 Vespasian in Britain. 

47 The Ludi Sceculares (secular games) performed at Rome. 

48 Messalina put to death by Claudius, who marries Agrippina the 

mother of Nero. 

50 St. Paul preaches in the Areopagus at Athens. 

51 Caractacus, the British King, is carried prisoner to Rome. 

54 Nero Emperor of Rome. 

55 Britannicus poisoned by Nero. 

59 Nero puts to death his mother Agrippina. 

60 Suetonius Paulinus defeats the Britons. 

61 The Britons, under Queen Boadicea, defeat the Romans. 
64 The first Persecution of the Christians raised by Nero. 

— Rome set on fire by Nero. 

66 Bareas Soranus and Thrasea Paetus put to death by Nero. 

— IT Pope Linus. 

67 Massacre of the Jews by Florus, at Caesarea, Ptolemais, and Alex- 

andria. 

— St. Peter and St. Paul put to death. 

— Josephus, the Jewish historian, governor of Galilee. 

— IT Pope St. Clement. 

68 Galoa Emperor of Rome. 

69 Otho Emperor of Rome. 

_ Vitellius Emperor of Rome. 

70 Vespasian Emperor of Rome. 

— Jerusalem taken and destroyed by Titus. 

77 IT Pope St. Cletus. 

78 A great Pestilence at Rome, 10,000 dying in one day. 

79 TitUS Emperor of Rome. 

— Herculaneum and Pompeii destroyed by an Eruption of Vesuvius. 

80 Conquests of Agricola in Britain. 

81 Domitian Emperor of Rome. 

83 IT Pope Anacletus. «... . . 

89 Apollonius of Tyanea defends himself before Domitian against an 
accusation of Treason. 

95 Dreadful Persecution of the Christians at Rome, and in the prov. 

inces. 

— St. John writes his Apocalypse, and his Gospel. 

96 Nerva Emperor of Rome. 

Ss2 



486 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

96 IT Pope Evaristus. 

98 Trajan Emperor of Rome. 

— Trajan forbids the Christian Assemblies. 
fOO 

103 The Dacians subdued by Trajan. 

107 Trajan's Victories in Asia. 

103 St. Ignatius devoured by wild Beasts at Rome. 

— 1T Pope Alexander I. 

115 The Jews in Cyreno murder 200,000 Greeks and Romans. 

117 IT Pope Sixtus I. 

118 Adrian Emperor of Rome. 

Persecution of the Christians renewed by Adrian, but afterward 

suspended. 
120 Adrian's Wall built across Britain. 
127 IT Pope Telesphorus. 
131 Adrian visits Egypt and Syria. 

i32 Adrian publishes his perpetual Edict or Code of the Laws. 
135 The Romans destroyed 580,000 Jews in Judaea. 

137 Adrian rebuilds Jerusalem by the name of iElia Capitolina. 

138 IT Pope Hyginus. 

— Antonius Pius Emperor of Rome. 
142 IF Pope Pius I. 

150 1T Pope Anicetus. 

154 Justin Martyr publishes his Apology for the Christians. 

161 Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Verus Emperors of 

Rome. 

162 H Pope Soter. 

167 Polycarp and Pionices suffered Martyrdom in Asia. 

169 War with the Marcomanni. 

171 Death of Verus. Marcus Aurelius sole Emperor. 

IT Pope Eleutherius. 

177 Persecution of the Christians at Lyons. 
180 Commodus Emperor of Rome. 
185 IT Pope Victor I. 

189 The Saracens defeat the Romans. This people first mentioned in 
history. 

193 Pertinax Emperor of Rome. DidlUS JulianUS purchases the 

Empire. 
Pescennius Niger declared Emperor in the East. 

— Septimius Severus Emperor of Rome. 

194 Niger defeated by Severus, and put to death. 

195 Byzantium besieged, surrenders to Severus. 

196 Albinus proclaimed Emperor in Britain. 

197 Albinus, defeated by Severus, kills himself. 
• - V Pope Zephyrinus. 

200 
202 The fifth Persecution against the Christians, principally in Egypt. 

208 Severus, with his sons Caracalla and Geta, in Britain. 

209 The Caledonians repulsed, and a Wall built between the rivers Forth 

and Clyde. 

211 Caracalla and Geta Emperors of Rome. 

212 Caracalla murders Geta. 
217 Caracalla put to death. 

— Macrinus Emperor of Rome. 

— IT Pope Calixtus I. 

213 Hellogabalus Emperor of Rome. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
AD. 

222 Alexander Severus Emperor of Rome. 

— A Tribute paid by the Romans to the Goths. 

— IT Pope Urban I. 

226 The Persians totally defeated by Alexander Several 
230 IT Pope Pontianus. 
235 IT Pope Anterus. 

— Maximinus assassinales Alexander Severus, and is proclaimed En 

peror of Rome. 
C36 The sixth Persecution of the Christians. 

- IT Pope Fabianus. 

237 Maximinus defeats the Dacians and Sarmatians. 

238 Maximus and Balbinus Emperors of Rome. 

Gordian Emperor of Rome. 

242 Gordian defeats the Persians under Sapor. 
244 Philip the Arabian Emperor of Rome. 

248 The Secular Games celebrated at Rome. Pompey's Theatre burnt 

St. Cyprian elected Bishop of Carthage. 

249 Decius Emperor of Rome. 

250 The seventh Persecution of the Christians under Decius. 

IF Pope St. Cornelius. 

251 Vibius Volusianus Emperor of Rome 

Gallus Emperor of Rome. 

252 1T Pope Lucius I. 

253 The Goths, Burgundians, &c make an Irruption into M<Bsia and 

Pannoniau 

254 Valerianus Emperor of Rome. 

U Pope Stephen I. 

257 The eighth Persecution of the Christians* 

IT Pope Sixtus II. 

259 The Persians ravage Syria. 

IT Pope Dionysius. 

260 Gallienus Emperor of Rome. 

The Temple of Diana at Ephesus burnt. 

261 Sapor, the Persian, takes Antioch, Tarsus, and Csesare 

267 The Heruli invade and ravage Greece. 

268 Claudius II. Emperor of Rome. 

269 The Goths and Heruli, to the number of 320,000, defoa, 4 by 

Claudius. 

IT Pope Felix I. 

270 Aurelian Emperor of Rome. 

271 The Alemanni and Marcomanni ravage the Empire. 

272 The ninth Persecution of the Christians. 

273 Zenobia Queen of Palmyra defeated by Aurelian at Edesaa 

274 1T Pope Eutychianus. 

275 TacitUS Emperor of Rome. 

276 Florianus Emperor of Rome. 

277 Probus Emperor of Rome. 

289! Carus Emperor of Rome defeats the Quadi and Sarmafiana 

282 Carinus, Numerianus, Emperors of Rome. 

283 IT Pope Caius. 

Fingal King of Morven died. 

284 Diocletian Emperor of Rome. 

386 The Empire attacked by the Northern Nations 

- Caiaunui usurps the government of Britain, and reign* i 



488 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

AD. 

290 The Grogoiian and Hermogenian Codes published. 
292 Partition of the Empire by Diocletian between two Emperors and two 
Caesars. 

295 TT Tope Mareellinus. 

Alexandria in Egypt taken by Diocletian. 

300 

302 The tenth Persecution of the Christians. 

304 IT Pope Marcellus. 

Resignation of Diocletian and Maximian 

- Galerius and Constantius Emperors of Rome. 

305 Maximinus Emperor of Rome. 

306 Constantine the Great Emperor of Rome. He stops the Per 

secution of the Christians. 
310 1T Pope Eusebius. 

IT Pope Melchiades. 

314 IT Pope Sylvester. 

325 Constantine abolishes the Combats of Gladiators. 

- He assembles the first General Council at Nice, where the Doctrines 

of Anus are condemned. 

326 St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, introduces MonarcJiism in the 

Roman Empire. 
329 Constantine removes the Seat of Empire to Constantinople. 

336 IT Pope Marcus. 

337 IT Pope Julius I. 

Death of Constantine. The Empire divided among his three Sons. 

- Constantine II., Constans, and Constantius, Emperors of 

Rome. 
352 IT Pope Liberius. 

356 U Pope Felix I. 

357 The Germans defeated by Julian at Strasburg. 

358 IT Pope Felix II. 

361 Julian Emperor of Rome. He abjures Christianity, is elected Pon- 
tifex Maximus, and attempts fruitlessly to rebuild the Temple of 
Jerusalem. 

363 Jovian Emperor of Rome. 

364 Valentinian Emperor of the West. 

Valens Emperer of the East. 

366 IT Pope Damasus. 

367 Gratian Emperor of the West. 

375 Valentinian II. Emperor of the West. 

376 Valens allows the Goths to settle in Thrace. 

378 The Goths advance to the Gates of Constantinople. Death of Valens. 

379 Theodosius the Great Emperor of the East. 
381 Second General Council held at Constantinople. 

383 The Huns overrun Mesopotamia ; are defeated by the Goths. 

384 Symmachus pleads the cause of Paganism against St. Ambrose m the 

Senate. 

385 IT Pope Syricius. 

392 Theodosius Emperor of the West and East. 

395 Arcadius Emperor of the East, and HonoriUS of the West. 

- The Huns invade the Eastern Provinces. 

397 St. Chrysostom chosen Patriarch of Constantinople. 
399 !T Pope Anastasius. 
— Gainas the Goth obtains Honours f om Arcadius. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 489 

A. IX 

400 

Alario the Goth ravages Italy. 

401 IT Pope Innocent I. 

403 Stilicho, General of Honorius, defeats Alaric near Pollentia, 

404 Jc ergus I. King of Scotland, supposed to have begun his reign. 
406 The Vandals, Alans, &c. invade France and Spain. 

408 Theodosius II. Emperor of the East. 

410 Rome sacked and burnt by Alaric. Death of Alaric. 

411 The Vandals settled in Spain. 

416 The Secular Games celebrated at Rome. 

- — The Pelagian Heresy condemned by the Bishops of Afhcn. 

417 IT Pope Zozimus. 

418 IF Pope Boniface I. 

420 Pkaramond first King of the Franks supposed to have oegun his 

reign. 
422 H Pope Caelestinus. 
424 Valentinian III. Emperor of the West. 
426 The Romans withdraw finally from Britain. 
428 iEtius, the Roman General, defeats the Franks and Goths. 

431 The third General Council held at Ephesus. 

432 IT Pope Sixtus III. 

435 The Theodosian Code published. 

439 Generic the Vandal invades and plunders Italy. 

— Eudocia the Empress, wife of Theodosius, retires to Jerusalem. 

- — Carthage taken by the Vandals. Kingdom of the Vandals in Africa. 

440 IT Pope Leo the Great. 

442 Theodosius forced to make a disgraceful Peace with Attila the Hun. 

Attila causes his brother Bleda to be murdered. 

445 The Britons in vain solicit the Romans to assist them against the Picts 

and Scots. 
445 Attila the Hun overruns Illyrium, Thrace, Dacia, Mcesia, and Scythia. 
448 The Romans engage to pay a heavy Tribute of Gold to Attila. 
440 Merovceus King of the Franks. 

450 Marcian Emperor of the East. 

— Attila ravages Germany and France. 

451 Theodoric King of the Visigoths killed in battle. The Hans defeated 

by iEtius. 

— The Saxons arrive in Britain under Hengist and Horsa. 

— The fourth General Council held at Chalcedon. 

452 Foundation of the city of Venice. 

455 Petromius Maximus Emperor of the West. 

— AvitUS Emperor of the West. 

Rome taken and plundered by Genseric the Vandal. 

456 Childeric King of the Franks. 

457 Leo the Great Emperor of the East. 
MajorianilS Emperor of the West. 

461 Severus Emperor of the West, raised by Ricimer. 

IT Pope Hilarius. 

467 Antnemius Emperor of the West. 

468 Eric King of the Visigoths drives the Romans out of Spain. 

1T Pope Simplicius. 

470 iElla the Saxon takes possession of the Kingdom of Sussex. 

471 iEUa defeats all the British Princes. 

479 Great Eruption of Mount Vesuvius, seen from 

- 01ybiu8 Emperor of the West. 



49t CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

473 GlycerillS, Emperor of the West, degraded and stripped by 

474 Julius Nepos Emperor of the West. 

Zero Emperor of the East. 

— AugUStulus Romulus Emperor of the West, raised by his father 

Orestes, General of Nepos. 
476 Orestes put to death by Odoacer King of the Heruli. 
Rome taken by Odoacer now king of Italy. 

Extinction of the Western Empire of the Romans, 507 years 

from the battle of Actium, and 1224 from the building of Rome. 
481 Clovis King of the Franks. 

— Zeno makes Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, his General, and creates him 

Consul. 

483 IT Pope Felix III. 

485 Battle of Soissons gained by Clovis 

488 Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, entirely defeats Odoacer, and is acknowl- 
edged King of Italy by the Emperor Zeno. 

490 The Burgundians, under Gondebald, ravage Italy. 

Ireland, called the Isle of Saints, famous for its Schools. 

491 Anastasius Emperor of the East. 
493 Odoacer put to death by Theodoric 

496 H Pope Anastasius II. 

497 Clovis and the Franks converted to Christianity. 

498 U Pope Symmachus. 

499 Alliance between Clovis and Theodoric the Great 
500 

— Gondebald, the Burgundian, becomes tributary to Clovis. 

501 The Burgundian Laws published by Gondebald. 

502 Cabades King of Persia ravages part of the Eastern Empire. 
504 The Eastern Empire makes peace with Cabades. 

507 Clovis defeats Alaric the Visigoth, and receives a congratulatory em- 

bassy, with a diadem, from Anastasius. 

508 Theodoric the Great defeats Clovis in the battle of Aries, and then 

makes peace with him. 

510 Clovis makes Paris the capital of the kingdom of the Franks. 

511 Death of Clovis. Division of his kingdom among his four sons, 
— ■- Childebert, Thierry, Clotaire, and Clodomir, Kings of the Franks. 

512 The Heruli allowed by Anastasius to settle in Thrace. 

514 fi Pope Hormisdas. 

515 Arthur king of the Britons supposed to have begun his reign. 

516 The Computation of Time by the Christian ^Era introduced by Did 

nysius the Monk. 

517 The Getae ravage Illyrium, Macedonia, and Epirus. 

518 Justin I. Emperor of the East raised from obscurity. 

519 Justin restores the Orthodox Bishops, and condemns the Eutychians. 

Cabades King of Persia proposes that Justin should adopt his so*. 

Cosroes, and makes war on a refusal. 
523 IT Pope John I. 

525 The Arian Bishops deposed by Justin, and this act highly resented ky 

Theodoric. 

Antioch and many other cities almost destroyed by an earthquake, and 

rebuilt by Justin, who adopts his nephew Justinian. 

526 Theodoric puts to death Boethius and Symmachus. 
— IT Pope Felix IV. 

527 Justinian I. Emperor of the East. 

529 Belisarius, General of Justinian, defeats the Persians. 

— The Books of the Civil Law published by Justinian. 

530 f Pope Boniface II. -- 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 491 

A.D. 

532 Justinian congratulates Cosroes on succeeding to the throne of Persia 

and concludes a perpetual peace with him. 

Great Insurrection at Constantinople quelled with prodigious slaughtoi 

by Belisarius. 

533 Athalaric King of the Qstrogotns dies, and is succeeded by his mother 

Amalasonta. 

A Pope John II. 

534 Theodobert King of Metz. 

Belisarius defeats Gelimer and the Vandals in Africa. 

535 IT Pope Agapetus. 

536 IT Pope Sylvester. 

537 Belisarius subdues the Ostrogoths in Italy, and takes Rome. 

538 IT Pope Vigilius. 

540 Belisarius refuses to accept the crown of Italy. 
543 Totila, the Goth, recovers Italy from the Romans. 

547 Totila takes and plunders Rome. 

548 Theobald King of Metz. 

549 Rome retaken by Belisarius. 

550 Commencement of the kingdom of Poland under Lechus. 

Rome recovered by Totila. 

551 The manufacture of Silk introduced into Europe. 

553 Totila defeated by Narses the Eunuch, and put to death. 
555 IT Pope Pdagius I. 

558 The Huns, breaking into Thrace, are defeated by Belisarius. 

559 Belisarius degraded, and ungratefully treated by Justinian. 

Clotaire sole King of France. 

560 IT Pope John III. 

Belisarius restored to his Honours and Command. 

562 Carlbert, Gontran Sigebert, and Chilperic, Kings of France. 

565 Justin II. Emperor of Rome. 

566 Narses, recalled from Italy, invites the Lombards to take possession 

of the country. 
568 Italy conquered by the Lombards. 
571 Birth of Mahomet the false Prophet. 
574 IT Pope Benedict I. 
578 Tiberius II. Emperor of the East. 
- — 1F Pope Pelagius II. 

580 The Latin Tongue ceases to be spoken in Italy about this time. 
582 Maurice Emperor of the East. 
584 Clotaire II. King of Soissons. 
590 Antioch again destroyed, with 30,000 inhabitants, by an Earthquake 

1T Pope Gregory the Great. 

596 Thierry II. and Theodobert II. Kings of Paris and Austrasui. 
Augustine the Monk converts the Saxons to Christianity. 

600 
602 Phocas Emperor of the East acknowledges the Supremacy of the 

Popes. 
604 IT Pope Sabinianus. 

607 IT Pope Boniface IV. . . 
The Pantheon at Rome Dedicated to God, the Virgin, and the Saints 

608 IT Pope Boniface IV. . i 

609 The Jews of Antioch massacre the Christians. 
611 Heraclius Emperor of the East. 

613 The French Maires du Palais first introduced by Clotaire as Regents, 

614 Clotaire II. sole King of France. t 

— Queen Brunechilda, accused of numberless crimes, is put to death by 
Clotaire II. 



4S« CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE 

A.D. 

615 IT Pope Deus-dedit. 

616 Jerusalem taken by the Persians under Cosroee II. 
618 IT Pope Boniface V. 

622 Era of the Hegyra, or Flight of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina. 
625 IT Pope Honorius I. 

- The Persians under Cosroes II., with the Huns, Abari, and Sclavo 

nians, besiege Constantinople. 
628 Dagobert and Charibert Kings of France. 

632 Death of Mahomet. Abubeker succeeds him as Caliph of the Sara- 

cens. 

633 Abubeker dies, and is succeeded by Omar in the Caliphate. 

636 Jerusalem taken by Omar and the Saracens, who keep possession of it 

463 years. 
638 Sigebert II. and CUvis II. Kings of France. 

640 IT Pope Severinus. 

IT Pope John IV. 

The Library of Alexandria, founded by Ptolemy Philadelphus, ia 

burnt by the Saracens. 

641 Constantine, Emperor of the East for a few months, poisoned by 

his step-mother. 

- Heraclionas and Tiberius III. Emperors of the East. 

642 Constans, son of Constantine, Emperor of the East. 
- — ft Pope Theodorus. 

645 Otman succeeds Omar m the Caliphate. 

648 Cyprus taken by the Saracens under Mawia. 

649 U Pope Martin I. 

653 The Saracens take Rhodes, and destroy the Colossus. 

654 Childeric II. King of Austrasia. 

IT Pope Eugenius I. 

655 Ali Caliph of Arabia. Mawia Caliph of Egypt. 

657 TT Pope Vitalianus. 

658 The Saracens obtain Peace of the Emperor Constans, and agree to 

pay a yearly tribute. 

668 Constantius V. (Pogonatus) Emperor of the East. 

669 Sicily ravaged by the Saracens. 
672 IT Pope Adeodatus 

- The Saracens ineffectually besiege Constantinople. Their fleet de- 

stroyed by the Greek Fire used by Callinicus. 

675 The Saracens attempt to land in Spain, but are repulsed by Wamba 

King of the Visgoths. 

676 IT Pope Djonus, 

679 Thierry IV. King of all France. 

1T Pope Agatho. 

G80 The sixth General or (Ecumenical Council of Constantinople. 
682 IF Pope Leo II. 

684 IT Pope Benedict II. 

685 IT Pope John V. 

Justinian II. Emperor of the East. 

- The Britons, totally subdued by the Saxons, retreat into Wales and 

Cornwall. 

686 IT Pope Canon. 

686 Ceadwalla King of Wessex subdues Sussex and Kent. 

687 1T Pope Sergius. 

690 Pepin Heristel, Maire du Palais, defeats Thierry, and acquires the 

dhief power in France. 
692 Clovis III. King ef France. 

694 Justinian II. dethroned, mutilated, and banished by Leontius. 

695 Gildeberl III King of France. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 493 

AD 

695 Leontius Emperor of the East. Dethroned and mutilated by 
697 Apsimar or Tiberius Emperor of the East. 
699 The Saracens defeated by John the Patrician. 
700 

The Saracens again defeated with great slaughter by Heraclius, brother 

of Tiberius. 
701 1T Pope John VI. 
704 Justinian escapes from prison, defeats Tiberius, and is restored to tho 

throne. 

707 Justinian II. defeated by the Bulgarians. 

708 II Pope Sisinnius. 

IT Pope Constantino. 

711 Philippicus Bardanes Emperor of the East. 

- Dagobert III. King of France. 

713 AnastasiUS II. Emperor of the East. 

- Spain conquered by the Saracens under Muca, the general of tha 

Caliph Walid. 

714 IT Pope Gregory II. 

Theodosius Emperor of the East. 

Charles Martel, Maire du Palais, governs all France for 26 years. 

716 Childeric II. King of France. 

Leo (the Isurian) Emperor of the East. 

720 Omar II. besieges Constantinople without success, 

Thierry IV. King of France. 

726 Leo forbids the Worship of Images, which occasions a great rebellion 
of his subjects. The Pope defends the practice. 

728 Leo orders Pope Gregory to be seized and sent to Constantinople; 

but the order is frustrated, and Leo confiscates the Imperial Do- 
mains of Sicily and Calabria. 

729 The Saracens ravage Gallia Narbonnensis. 

731 1T Pope Gregory III. 

732 Charles Martel defeats the Saracens between Tours and Poictiers. 

736 Leo persecutes the Monks. 

737 Death of Pelagius, who preserved the Christian Monarchy in Asturia. 

740 The Duchy of Spoleto seized by the Normans. Recovered by the 

Pope. 

741 1T Pope Zachary. 

742 Childeric III. King of France. 

Constantine (Copronymus) Emperor of the East. An enemy to 

images and saint worship. 

743 He defeats and puts to death Artabazdus, who had seized Constan- 

tinople. 
745 He destroys the fleet of the Saracens. 
749 The Race of the Abassidae become Caliphs of the Saracens. 

751 Pepin (le Bref) King of France, founder of the second or Carlovin* 

gian Race. 

752 IT Pope Stephen III. 

753 Astolphus King of the Lombards erects the Dukedom of Ravenno, 

and claims from the Pope the Dukedom of Rome. 

754 Pope Stephen requests the assistance of Pepin against the Lombards. 

Pepin invades Italy, and strips Astolphus of his new possessions, con- 

ferring them on the Pope as a temporal sovereignty. 

Almanzor Caliph of the Saracens, a great encouragerof learning. 

756 Desiderius, or Dider, proclaimed King of the Lombards, with th« 

Pope's consent. 
_ Abdalrahman I. takes the title of King of Cordova, and is the founder 
of the splendid dominion of the Moors in Spain 

Tt 



494 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

757 H Pope Paul I. renews the alliance with Desiderius. 
759 1T Pope Stephen III. quarrels with Desiderius. 

762 Almanzor builds Bagdat, and makes it the seat of the Empire of the 
Caliphs. 

767 The Turks ravage Asia Minor. 

768 Charles (the Great) and Carloman, Kings of France. 

TT Pope Stephen IV. 

770 Constantine dissolves the Monasteries in the East. 
772 Charlemagne sole Monarch of France. 

He makes war against the Saxons. 

IT Pope Adrian I. 

774 Charlemagne defeats Desiderius, and puts an end to the kingdom of 

the Lombards, which had subsisted 206 years. 

775 Leo IV. Emperor of the East. 

778 Battle of Roncezvalles between the Christians and Moors in Spain, 

where Rolando is killed. 

779 Charlemagne conquers Navarre and Sardinia. 

781 Constantine (Porphyrogenitus) Emperor of the East. 

Irene, Empress, is Regent in her son's minority, and keeps him in 

entire subjection. 

She re-establishes the worship of images. 

785 Charlemagne subdues the Saxons. 

Haroun Alraschid Caliph of the Saracens. 

He invades and ravages a part of the Empire. 

786 Constantine assumes the government of the Empire, and imprisons 

his mother. 

787 The Danes first land in England. 

- The seventh General Council, or second of Nice. 

788 Irene puts to death her son Constantine, and is proclaimed so.e Em- 

press. 

793 Irene proposes to marry Charlemagne, which being disapproved by 

her subjects, she is dethroned, and confined to a monastery. 

NicephorilS Emperor of the East. 

794 Charlemagne defeats and extirpates the Huns. 

IF Pope Leo HI. 

797 The Saracens ravage Cappadocia, Cyprus, Rhodes, &c. 

Nicephorus associates his son Saturacius in the Empire. 

800 

New Empire of the West. Charlemagne crowned Emperor at 

Rome. 
807 Haroun Alraschid courts the alliance of Charlemagne. 
811 Michael (-Curopalates) Emperor of the East. 

813 Leo (the Armenian) Emperor of the East. 

Almamon, Caliph of the Saracens, a great encourager of learning. 

814 Lewis (le Debonnaire) Emperor of France. 

316 The Eastern Empire ravaged by Earthquakes, Famine, Conflagra- 
tions, &c. 

816 IT Pope Stephen V. 

817 IT Pope Pascal I. 

- Lewis (le Deb.) divides the Empire among his sons. 

821 Michael (Balbus or the Stammerer) Emoeror of the East. 
824 TT^Pope Eugene II. 

827 |2gt)0tt unites the kingdoms of the Saxon Heptarchy. Beginning 
. of the kingdom of England. 

f Pope Valentine 

828 Gregory IV. 

829 TheophilllS Emperor of the East. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 
A.D. 

838 2Etf)£ltoOK King of England. 
— The Scots under Kenneth entirely subdue the Picts. 

840 LOTHARIUS Emperor of Germany. 
Charles (the Bald) King of France. 

841 Lotharius defeated by his two brothers in the battle of Fontenai, 



842 LEWIS (of Bavaria) Emperor of Germany. 

Michael III. Emperor of the East. 

843 The Normans plunder the city of Rouen. 

844 IT Pope Sergius III. 

845 The Normans plunder Hamburgh, and penetrate into Germany. 

847 IT Pope Leo IV. 

848 The Venetian Fleet destroyed by the Saracens. 

851 IT Pope Joan supposed to have filled the Papal chair for two yean. 

BasillUS associated Emperor of the East. 

855 LEWIS II. Emperor of Germany. 

857 12tl)tltJaltr and IStfjelfoXtt Kings of England. 

858 IT Pope Nicholas I. 

866 IStljClretf King of England. 
667 The Danes ravage England. 

- Basilius sole Emperor of the East. 

- tf Pope Adrian II. 

- Potius, Patriarch of Constantinople, excommunicates Pope Adrian. 
372 ElCretT (the Great) King of England. 

II Pope John VIII. 

875 CHARLES (the Bald) Emperor of Germany. 

877 LEWIS (the Stammerer) Emperor of Germany and King of France 

879 Lewis III. and Carloman, Kings of France. 

The kingdom of Aries begins. 

880 CHARLES (the Gross) Emperor of Germany and King of France. 

Ravagers of the Normans in France. 

882 IT Pope Marinus. 

884 IT Pope Adrian III. 

886 Leo (the Philosopher) Emperor of the East. 
- — The University of Oxford founded by Alfred. 

887 ARNOLD, Emperor of Germany. 

The Normans besiege Paris, which is gallantly defended by Bishop 

Goselin and Count Eudes. 

888 Eudes or Odo King of France. 

890 Alfred the Great composes his Code of Laws, and divides Enj 

into Counties, Hundreds, and Tithings. 

891 H Pope Formosus. 

896 IT Pope Stephen VII. 

897 T Pope John IX. 

898 Charles III. (the Simple) King of France. 
900 

11 Pope Benedict IV. 

LEWIS IV. Emperor of Germany. 

901 IStttoatft (the Elder) succeeds Alfred as King of England 

904 IT Pope Leo V. 

905 IT Pope Sergius III. 

911 CONRAD I. Emperor of Germany. 

Constantine IX. Emperor of the East. 

912 The Normans are established in Normandy under Rollo. 

913 U Pope Anastasius. 

914 tf Pope Landon. 

915 Constantine and Romanus Emperors of the East. 



496 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

915 1T Pope John X. 

— The University of Cambridge founded by Edward the Elder. 
920 HENRY (the Fowler) Emperor of Germany. 
923 Rodolph King of France. 
925 &ft)tl8tan King of England. 

928 IT Pope Leo VI. 

929 f Pope Stephen VIII. 
931 IT Pope John XI. 

936 OTHO (the Great) Emperor of Germany. 

IT Pope Leo VII. 

Lewis IV. (d'Outremer) King of France. 

939 IT Pope Stephen IX. 

940 Howel-Dha, King of Wales, an eminent Lawyer. 

941 SStrmUtttr I. King of England. 
943 IT Pope Marinus XIII. 

946 IT Pope Agapet. 

948 IHtrrrtT King of England. 

954 Lotharius King of France. 

955 lEfatog King of England. 

956 IT Pope John XII. 

959 Romanus II. Emperor of the East. 

IStTflar King of England. 

963 1T Pope Leo VIII. 

- Nicephorus Phocus Emperor of the East. 

964 Otho the Great conquers Italy. 

965 IT Pope John XIII. 

967 Antioch recovered from the Saracens by Nicephorus^ 
969 John Zemisses Emperor of the East. 

972 IT Pope Benedict VI. 

973 OTHO II. Emperor of Germany. 

974 IT Pope Boniface VII. 

975 IT Pope Benedict VII. 

- Basilius and Constantine X. E#aperors of the East. 

976 SStttoartt IL King of England. 
978 SStfjetotr II. King of England. 

983 OTHO III. Emperor of Germany. 

984 1T Pope John XIV. 
986 IT Pope John XV. 

Lewis V. {le Faineant) King of France. 

Hugh Capet, King of France, founder of the Third Race qf the 

Kings. 
991 The Arabic numeral Ciphers first introduced into Europe. 
996 Robert (the Wise) King of France. 

IT Pope Gregory V. 

999 IT Pope Sylvester II. 

1000 

1002 HENRY II. Emperor of Germany. 

— — Great Massacre of the Danes by Ethelred Sing of England. 

1003 1T Pope John XVI. 
IT Pope John XVII. 

1004 IT Pope John XVIII. 

1005 Churches first built in the Gothic flttle. 
1009 IT Pope Sergius IV. 

1012 IT Pope Benedict VIII. 

1013 The Danes, under Sueno, get possession of England. 
1015 The Manichean Doctrines prevalent in France and Italy. 
M>1« lETrimWTr II. (Ironside) King of England. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 491 

AD. 

1016 Six Battles fought with the Danes under Canute in England. 

1017 (tmUte the Dane (the Greats King of England 

1018 The Normans invade Italy. 8 g 
1024 IT Pope John XIX. or XX. 

— CONRAD II. (the Salic) Emperor of Germany. 
. 025 Musical Characters invented by Guido Aretino. 
1028 Romanus Argyrus Emoerorof the East. 
1031 Henry I. King of France, 

1033 IT Pope Benedict IX. 

1034 Michael IV. Emperor of the East. 

1036 ffyaVOlU II. (Harefoot) King of England. 

1039 HEJVR Y III. Emperor of Germany. 

— <&anuti ii. or Jfy artricamtte King of England. 

1040 Macbeth usurps the Throne of Scotland by the murder of Duncan. 

1041 li fttotlt'tl III. (the Confessor) King of England, restores the Sax- 

on line. 

Michael (Calaphales) Emperor of the East. 

1042 Constantine (Monomachus) Emperor of the East. 

1043 The Turks, under Tangrolipix, subdue Persia. 

1045 IT Pope Gregory VI. 

1046 IT Pope Clement II. 

1048 IT Pope Damasus II. 

1049 IT Pope Leo IX. the first Pope who maintained a regular army. 

1054 Theodora Emperor of the East. 

Pope Leo IX. taken prisoner by the Normans. 

1055 IT Pope Victor II. 

The Turks take Bagdat, and overturn the Empire of the Caliphs. 

1056 HENRY IV. Emperor of Germany. 

1057 Malcolm III. (Canmore) King of Scotland. 

Isaac (Comnenus) Emperor of the East. 

IT Pope Stephen X. 

1058 IT Pope Nicholas II. 

— —r The Saracens driven out of Sicily by Robert Guiscard the Norman. 

1059 Constantine XII. (Ducas) Emperor of the East. 

1060 Philip I. King of France. 

1061 M Pope Alexander II. 

1065 The Turks take Jerusalem from the Saracens. 

1066 ffy&tOltl II- King of England reigned nine months. 

Sfetlltam (the Conqueror) King of England. 

1068 Romanus Diogenes Emperor of the East. 

Edgar Atheling seeks refuge in Scotland. 

1068 Margaret, sister of Edgar Atheling, married to Malcolm King of Scot- 
land. 

1070 The Feudal Law introduced into England. 

1071 Michael Ducas Emperor of the East. 
1073 IT Pope Gregory VII. 

1076 The Emperor Henry IV. excommunicated and deposed by the Popn, 

1078 Nicephorus (Boton) Emperor of the East. 

1079 Doomsday-book begun by William the Conqueror. 
1081 Alexius I. (Comnenus) Emperor of the East. 

Henry IV. Emperor besieges Rome. 

1034 He is re-crowned Emperor of Germany. 

1086 IT Pope Victor III. 

1087 IT Pope Urban II. 

Tt2 6S 



498 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 

A.D, 

1087 WL tlltam II. (Rufus) King of England. 
1093 St. Margaret Queen of Scotland died, 

- Donald Bane King of Scotland. 

1095 Duncan II. King of Scotland. 

The first Crusade to the Holy Land. Peter the Hermit. 

1098 The Crusaders take Antioch. 

cLdgar King of Scotland. 

1099 Jerusalem taken by Godfrey of Boulogne. The Knights of St. John 

instituted. 

IT Pope Pascal II. 

1100 

JIf Wtg I. (Beauclerc) King of England. 

1102 Guiscard of Normandy takes the title of King of Naples. 
1104 Baldwin King of Jerusalem takes Ptolemais. 

1106 HENRY V. Emperor of Germany. 

1107 Alexander I. King of Scotland. 

1108 Lewis VI. {le Gros) King of France. 

1118 IT Pope Gelasius II. 

The order of Knights Templars instituted. 

John (Comnenus) Emperor of the East. 

1 119 IT Pope Calixtus II. 

1124 David I. King of Scotland. 
— — Ti Pope Honorius II. 

1125 LOTHARIUS II. Emperor of Germany. 
1130 IT Pope Innocent II. 

1135 ^tepljeil King of England. 

1137 Lewis VII. {le Jeune) King of France. Married to Eleanor of Gui- 

enne. 

The Pandects of the Roman Law discovered at Amalphi. 

1138 CONRAD III. Emperor of Germany. 

The Scots, under David I., defeated by the English in the battle of the 

Standard. 

1139 Alphonso I. King of Portugal rescues his kingdom from the Saracens. 

1140 The Canon Law first introduced into England. 

1141 Stephen King of England taken prisoner in the battle of Lincoln by 

the troops of Matilda. 

1143 He recovers his kingdom. 

H Pope Caelestinus II. 

Manuel (Comnenus) Emperor of the East. 

1144 IT Pope Lucius II. 

1145 IT Pope Eugene III. 

1147 The second Crusade excited by St. Bernard. 

1150 The study of the Civil Law revived at Bologna. 

1151 The Canon Law is collected by Gratian, a Monk of Bologna. 

1152 FREDERICK I. (Barbarossa) Emperor of Germany. 

1153 Malcolm IV. King of Scotland. 
— — — 1T Pope Anastasius IV. 

Treaty of Winchester. Compromise between King Stephen and 

Prince Henry. 

1154 pKJtrg H- (Plantagenet) King of England. 

IT Pope Adrian IV. 

The parties of the Guelphs and Ghibellines disturb Italy. 

1157 The Bank of Venice instituted. 

1158 Interview between Henry II. and Malcolm IV. at Carlisle. 

1159 IT Pope Alexander III. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 4M 

A.D. 

1160 The Albigenses maintain heretical doctrines. 

1164 Institution of the order of the Teutonic Knights in Gemtanv, 

T. Becket condemned by the Council of Clarendon. 

1165 William (the Lion) King of Scotland. 

1171 T. Becket murdered at Canterbury. 

1172 Conquest of Ireland by Henry II. 

1180 Philip Augustus King of France. 

1181 Alexius II. (Comnenus) Emperor of the East. 
1183 IT Pope Lucius III. 

Andronicus (Comnenus) Emperor of the East. 

1185 IT Pope Urban III. 

Isaac Angelus Emperor of the East. 

1187 IT Pope Gregory VIII. 

The city of Jerusalem taken by Saladin. 

1188 IT Pope Clement III. 

1189 literal*}! I. (Coeur de Lion) King of England. 

The third Crusade under Richard I. and Philip Augustus. 

1190 HENRY VI. Emperor of Germany. 

1191 IT Pops Caelestinus HI. 

1192 Richard I. defeats Saladin in the battle of Ascalon. 
— — Guy of Lusignan King of Jerusalem. 

1195 Alexius Angelus (the Tyrant) Emperor of the East. 

1198 PHILIP Emperor of Germany. 
— — IT Pope Innocent III. 

1199 H Ofltt King of England. 
1200 

1202 The fourth Crusade sets out from Venice. 

. Constantinople taken by the French and Venetians. 

1203 Alexius and Murbzuphlus Emperors of the East. 

1204 Baldwin I. Emperor of Constantinople, and Theodore I. 

caris) Emperor of Nicsea. 

The Inquisition established by Pope Innocent III. 

1206 Henry Emperor of Constantinople. 

1208 OTHOIV. Emperor of Germany. 

London incorporated, obtains a charter for electing a Mayor and 

Magistrates. 
1210 Crusade against the Albigenses, under Simon de Montfort. 
1212 FREDERICK II. Emperor of Germany. 

1214 Alexander II. Kmg of Scotland. 

1215 Magna Charta signed by King John. 

1216 ffimtg HI. King of England. 

Peter and John Ducas Emperors of the East. 

1219 Robert Emperor of the East. 

Damietta taken by the Crusaders 

1223 Lewis VIII. King of France. 

1226 IT Pope Honorius III. 

St. Lewis IX. King of France. 

1227 IT Pope Gregory IX. 

Gengiskan and the Tartars overrun the Empire of the Saracen*. 

1228 Baldwin II. French Emperor of Constantinople. 
1234 The Inquisition committed to the Dominican Monks. 
1237 Russia brought under subjection by the Tartars. 
1241 IT Pope Caelestinus IV. 

1243 IT Pope Innocent IV. 

1248 The fifth C-usade under St. Lewis. 



500 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

1249 Alexander III. King of Scotland. 
1251 CONRAD IV. Emperor of Germany. 

1254 IT Pope Alexander IV. 

Interregnum in the Empire of Germany, from the death of Conrad IV. 

in 1254, to the election of Rodolph in 1273. 

1255 Theodore II. (Lascaris) Emperor of Nicaea. 

1258 Bagdat taken by the Tartars. End of the Empire of the Saracens. 

L259 John (Lascaris) Emperor of Nicaea. 

»260 Michael (Palaeologus) Emperor of Nicaea. 

The Flagellants preach Baptism by Brood. 

i261 IT Pope Urban IV. 

The Greek Emperors recover Constantinople from the French. 

1263 The Norwegians invade Scotland, and are defeated by Alexander III. 

in the battle of Largs. 

1264 IT Pope Clement IV. 

The Deputies of Boroughs first summoned to Parliament in England. 

Henry III. of England taken prisoner in the battle of Lewes. 

1265 Charles Count of Anjou King of Sicily. 

1270 Philip III. (the Bold) King of France. 

1271 IT Pope Gregory X. 

1272 ISfrtoaVtf I. (Longshanks) King of England. 

1273 RODOLPH (of Hapsburg) Emperor of Germany, first of the Austri- 

an Family. 
1276 IT Pope Innocent V. 

11 Pope Adrian V. 

IT Pope John XXI 

L277 IT Pope Nicholas III. 

1281 1T Pope Martin IV. 

1282 The Sicilian Vespers, when 8,000 French were massacred. 

1283 AndronicilS I. (Palaeologus) Emperor of the East. 

The conquest of Wales by Edward I. 

1285 1T Pope Honorius IV. 

Philip IV. (the Fair) King of France. 

1286 Margaret (of Norway) Queen of Scotland. 
1288 IT Pope Nicholas IV. 

1290 Interregnum in Scotland for two years. Competition between Brace 

and Baliol for the crown, decided by Edward I. 

1291 Ptolemais taken by the Turks. End of the Crusades. 

1 292 John Baliol King of Scotland. M 

ADOLPHUS (of Nassau) Emperor of Germany. 

IT Pope Caelestinus V. 

£293 From this year there is a regular succession of English Parliaments. 

1294 IT Pope Boniface VIII. 

1295 Michael Andronicus Emperor of the East. 

1296 Interregnum in Scotland for eight years. Sir William Wallace nobly 

supports the liberty of his country, defeats the English at Sterling 
and drives them out of the kingdom. 
1298 Wallace chosen Regent of Scotland, defeated at Falkirk. 

ALBERT I. (of Austria) Emperor of Germany. 

The present Turkish Empire begins under Ottoman in Bithynia. 

1300 

1301 Quarrel between Philip the Fair and Pope Boniface VIII. 

1302 Comyn and Fraser defeat the English thrice in one day. 

The Mariner's Compass said to be discovered at Naples. 

1304 Wallace betrayed, delivered up, and put to death by Edward I. 

1306 Robert I. (Bruce) King of Scotland- 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 501 

AD. 

1307 The Establishment of the Swiss Republic!. 
IStJtoattt II. King of England 

1308 HENRY VII. Emperor of Germany. 

U Pope Clement V. 

The seat of the Popes transferred to Avignon for seventy years. 

1310 Rhodes taken by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. 

1311 Pierce Gaveston, favourite of Edward II., put to death. 

1312 The Knights Templars suppressed by Philip the Fair. 

1314 The Scots under Robert Bruce defeat the English under Edward II. 

at Bannockburn. 
— LEWIS V. (of Bavaria) Emperor of Germany. 
Lewis X. (Hutin) King of France. 

1315 John King of France. 

1316 IT Pope John XXII. 

Philip V. {the Long) King of France. 

1320 Andronicus II. (Palaeologus) Emperor of the East. 

1321 Charles IV. (the Fair) King of France. 

1327 IStltoartr III. King of England. 

1328 Philip VI. (of Valois) King of France. 

1329 David II. King of Scotland. Randolph Earl of Murray Regent. 

1331 The Teutonic Knights settle in Prussia. 

1332 Edward Baliol, assisted by Edward III., is crowned at Scone King of 

Scots, but is soon driven out of the kingdom. 

1333 Casimir III. (the Great) King of Poland. 

1334 IF Pope Benedict XII. 

1340 Gunpowder invented by Swartz, a Monk of Cologne. 

Oil Painting invented by John Van Eyke. 

1341 John V. (Palaeologus) Emperor of the East. 
—- John Cantacuzenos, his governor, usurps the throne. 

1342 IT Pope Clement VI. 

1346 Battle of Cressy won by Edward III. and the Black Prince over the 

French. 
Battle of Durham, in which David II. of Scotland is taken prisoner. 

1347 CHARLES IV. Emperor of Germany. 

Cola Rienzi assumes the Government of Rome. 

1350 The Order of the Garter instituted by Edward III. 

Peter (the Cruel) King of Castile. 

1351 John II. King of France. 

1352 11 Pope Innocent VI. 

The Turks first enter Europe, 

1356 The Battle of Poictiers, in which John II. King of France ia taken 

prisoner, and afterwards brought to London. 
1362 IT Pope Urban V. 

The Law-pleadings in England changed from French to English. 

1346 Charles V. King of France. 

1370 IT Pope Gregory XI. 

— Robert II. King of Scotland. 

1377 The Seat of the Popes removed back from Avignon to Rome. 

- ittti)arTr II. King of England. 

Wicklhfe's Doctrines propagated in England. 

1378 The Schism of the double Popes at Rome and Avignon begins and 

continues thirty-eight years. 

— IT Pope Urban VI. of Rome 

H Pope Clement VII. of Avignon. 

1378 WEJfCESLAUS Emperor of Germany, deposed in 1400. 

1380 Charles VI. King of France. 

• Tamerlane invades and subdues Chorassar. 

1381 Wat Tyler's and Jack Straw's Insurrection in England. 



502 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

1381 Peace between Venice and Genoa. 

Bills of Exchange first used in England. 

1383 Cannon first used by the English in the defence of Calais. 

1384 Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, succeeds to the Earldom of 

Flanders. 
1386 Tamerlane subdues Georgia. 

1388 Battle of Otterburn between Percy (Hotspur) and Douglas. 

1389 IT Pope Boniface IX. 

1390 Robert III. king of Scotland 

1391 Manuel II. (Palaeologus) Emperor of the East. 

1392 The Cape of Good Hope discovered by the Portuguese. 

1394 The Jews banished from France by Charles VI. 

U Pope Benedict XIII. 

1395 Sigismund King of Hungary defeated by Bajazet I. 

1398 Tamerlane subdues part of Hindoostan, and takes Delhi. 

1399 fZftnrg IV. King of England. 
1400 

1402 Bajazet is taken prisoner by Tamerlane in the battle of Angoria. 

Battle of Halidoun Hill, in which the Scots are defeated. 

1403 Battle of Shrewsbury, in which Hotspur is killed. 

1404 IT Pope Innocent VII. 

1405 Death of Tamerlane. 

1406 J ames I. King of Scotland. 

H Pope Gregory XII. 

1409 Council of Pisa, where Pope Gregory is deposed. 

II Pope Alexander V. 

1410 JOSSE (Marquis of Brandenburgh) Emperor of Germany 

U Pope John XXIII. 

1411 SIGISMUND Emperor of Germany. 

The University of St. Andrews in Scotland founded. 

1413 JfyttlVg V. King ef England. 

1414 Council of Constance, in which two Popes were deposed, and Pope- 

dom remained vacant near three years. 

1415 Henry V. defeats the French at Agincourt. 

John Huss condemned by the Council of Constance for Heresy and 

burnt. 

1416 Jerome of Prague condemned by the same Council, and burnt. 

1417 IT Pope Martin V. 

Paper first made from linen rags. 

1420 The Island of Madeira discovered by the Portuguese. 

1421 John VI. (Palaeologus) Emperor of the East. 

1422 Amurath besieges Constantinople. 
%£ tirg VI. King of England. 

Charles VII. King of France. 

James I. King of Scots liberated from captivity by the English. 

1425 The Court of Session in Scotland instituted by James I. 

1428 Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans, compels the English to raise the 

siege of that town. 
k431 IT Pope Eugene IV. 

Rise of the Medici family at Florence. 

1436 Paris recovered by the French from the English. 

1437 James II. King of Scotland. 

1438 ALBERT II. Emperor of Germany. 

1439 Reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches. 

The Pragmatic Sanction established in France. 

1440 FREDERICK III. Emperor of Germany. 

Invention of the art of Printing by John Guttenberg at Strasburg. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 5W 

A.D. 

1444 Ladislaus King of Hungary killed in battle with the Turks. 
445 Constantine (Palaeologus) Emperor of the East. 

1446 Great Inundation of the sea in Holland. 

1447 IT Pope Nicholas V. 

Rise of the Sforza Family at Milan. 

L453 Constantinople taken by the Turks Extinction of the Eastern 
Empire of the Romans. 

End of the English government in France. 

1455 IT Pope Calixtus III. 

Battle of St. Albans, where Henry VI. is taken prisoner by the Dukt 

of York. 

1458 IF Pope Pius II. (^Eneas Sylvius.) 

1459 The art of Engraving on copper invented. 

1460 James III. King of Scotland. 

Battle of Wakefield, in which the Duke of York is killed 

1461 SStJtUartr IV. King of England. 

Lewis XI. King of France. 

1470 Henry VI. restored to the throne of England. 

1471 Battle of Barnet, where Warwick is killed. Battle of Tewksburj, 

where the Lancastrians are totally defeated. 

Edward IV. restored. Prince Edward of Lancaster basely murdered 

by Clarence and Gloucester. Death of Henry VI. 

IT Pope Sixtus IV. 

1474 The Cape de Verd Islands discovered by the Portuguese. 

1475 Edward IV. invades France. Peace of Pecquigni purchased by tfc 

French. 
1479 Ferdinand and Isabella unite the kingdoms of Arragon and Castile. 
Russia freed from subjection to the Tartars by John Basilwitz. 

1483 Charles VIII. King of France. 

ISttfcUattf V. King of England. Duke of Gloucester Protector. 

■ Edward V. and his brother murdered. 

IfttCijartT HI. King of England. 

1484 IT Pope Innocent VIII. 

1485 Battle of Bosworth, in which Richard III. is killed. 

— f^ttirg VII. King of England, first of the house of Tudor. Union 
of the houses of York and Lancaster. 

1488 James IV. King of Scotland. 

1491 Granada taken by Ferdinand and Isabella. End of the kingdom of 

the Moors in Spain. 

1492 II Pope Alexander VI. (Borgia.) 

Hispaniola and Cuba discovered by Christopher Columbus. 

1493 MAXIMILIAN I. Emperor of Germany. 

1494 Expedition of Charles VIII. into Naples. 
Algebra first known in Europe. 

America discovered by Columbus. 

1497 The Portuguese, under Vasco de Ganca, double the Cape of Good 

Hope and sail to the East Indies. 

1498 Leiois XII. king of France. 

Savanorala burnt by Pope Alexander VI. for preaching against the 

vices of the clergy. 

1499 Lewis XII. takes possession of the Milanese. 

Sebastian Cabot lands in North America. 

150Q 

Brazil discovered by the Portuguese. 

Maximilian divides Germany into six Circles, and adds four more in 

1512. 
1503 U Pope Pius III. 



504 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

AD. 

1503 IT Pope Julius II. 

Battle of Cerizoles, in which the French lose Naples. 

1504 Philip I. King of Spain.— 1506 Jane his Queen. 

1507 Madagascar discovered by the Portuguese. 

1508 League of Cambray against the Venetians. 

1509 ftfnrj) VIII. King of England. 
■ Battle or Agnadello, May 14. 
1511 Cuba conquered by the Spaniards. 
1513 Battle of Flodden, fatal to the Scots. 

«J ames V. King of Scotland. 

IT Pope Leo X. 

1515 Francis I. King of France. 

1516 Charles I. (Emperor Charles V.) King of Spain. 

Barbarossa seizes the Kingdom of Algiers. 

1517 The Reformation in Germany begun by Luther. 

* The Turks put an end to the reign of the Mamelukes ii Egypt. 

1518 Leo X. condemns Luther's Doctrines. 

1519 CHARLES V. Emperor of Germany. 

Fernando Cortez engages in the conquest of Mexico. 

1520 Sweden and Denmark united. 

— — Massacre at Stockholm by Christiern II. and Archbishoj Trollo. 

1521 IT Pope Adrian VI. 

Gustavus Vasa King of Sweden. 

Cortez completes the conquest of Mexico. 

1522 The first Voyage round the World performed by a ship c* Magellan'i 

squadron. 

1523 Solyman the Magnificent takes Belgrade. 

IT Pope Clement VII. 

1524 Sweden and Denmark embrace the Protestant faith. 

1525 Battle of Pavia, in which Francis I. is taken prisoner by Charles V. 

1526 Treaty of Madrid between Charles V. and Francis I., wh«H the Utter 

is set at liberty. 

1527 Rome taken and plundered by Charles V. 

^ Pizarro and Dalmagro invade the Empire of Peru 

1528 Revolution of Genoa by Andrea Doria. 

Gustavus Eriscon crowned King of Sweden. 

1529 Diet of Spires against the Huguenots, then first termed F*e^«atants< 

Peace of Cambray, August 5 

1530 The League of Smalcald between the Protestants. 

1531 Michael Servetus burnt for heresy at Geneva. 

1532 The Treaty of Nuremberg, August 2. 

• The Court of Session in Scotland new modeled by James $ 

1534 The Reformation in England. 

IT Pope Paul III. 

Barbarossa seizes the Kingdom of Tunis. 

Jack of Leyden heads the Anabaptists at Munster. 

1535 The Society of the Jesuits instituted by Ignatius Loyola. 

Expedition of Charles V. against Tunis. 

1538 Treaty of Nice between Charles V. and Francis 1. 

1540 Dissolution of the Monasteries in England by Henry VIII 

1542 iVlary Queen of Scotland. 

1544 The French defeat the troops of Charles V. in the battle of Ce i woi«s. 

The treaty of Crepi. 

1545 The Council of Trent begins, which continued eighteen years. 

1546 Cardinal Beaton, of St. Andrew's, assassinated. 

1547 Fiesco's Conspiracy at Genoa. 

-^ The Battle of Mulberg, in which the Protestants are defeated, &*»d the 
Elector of Saxony taken prisoner. 

- ISfcfcarfc VI. King of England. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. ju 

A.D. 

1547 Henry II. King of France, 

1548 The Interim granted by Charles V. to the Protest&nti. 
1550 1F Pope Julius III. 

.552 The Treaty of Passau between Charles V. and the Elector of Saxony, 

for the Establishment of Lutheranism. 
1553 J^atg Queen of England. 

Lady Jane Grey beheaded. 

1555 IT Pope Marcellus II. 

- IT Pope Paul IV. 

Many Bishops burnt in England by Mary. 

1556 FERDINAND I. Emperor of Germany. 

Philip II. King of Spain. 

1557 Philip II. defeats the French at St. Quintin, 

1558 SEltfafcetf) Queen of England. 

1559 IT Pope Pius IV. 

. Francis II. King of France. 

Treaty of Catteau-Cambresis. 

1560 Charles IX. King of France. 

Conspiracy of Amboise formed by the party of Conde against that of 

Guise. Beginning of the Civil Wars in France. 

The Reformation completed in Scotland by John Knox. 

1561 Mary Queen of Scots arrives in Scotland from France. 

1562 Battle of Dreux. Victory of the Guises over Conde, 
1564 MAXIMILIAN II. Emperor of Germany. 

1566 11 Pope Pius VI. 

Revolt of the Netherlands from Philip II. 

1567 The Duke of Alva sent by Philip to the Netherlands. 

*l ames VI. King of Scotland. 

1568 Mary Queen of Scots flees to Englan d for protection. 

Philip II. puts to death his son Don Carlos. 

1509 The Earl of Murray, Regent of Scolland, assassinated by Hamilton. 

The battles of Jarnac and Moncontc ur in France, in which the ProU 

estants are defeated. 

1571 Naval Victory at Lepanto, where th< Turks are defeated by Don Johl 

of Austria. 

1572 IT Pope Gregory XIII. 

The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, August 24. 

1574 Henry HI. King of France. 

Socinus propagates his opinions. 

Don Sebastian King of Portugal invades Africa. 

1576 RODOLPHUS II. Emperor of Germany. 

-. The League in France formed against the Protestants. 

1579 Commencement of the Republic of Holland, by the union of Utrecht 

1580 Philip II. takes possession of Portugal. 

The World circumnavigated by Sir Francis Drake. 

1582 The New Style introduced into Italy by Pope Gregory XIII., the 6th 
of October being counted the 15th. 

1584 William I. Prince of Orange murdered at Delft. 

Virginia discovered by Sir Walter Raleigh. 

1585 IT Pope Sixtus V. 

1587 Mary Queen of Scots beheaded at Fotheringay. 

1588 Destruction of the Spanish Armada by the English. 

1589 Henry III. of France murdered by Jaquez Clement. 

Henry IV. {the Great) King of France. 

1590 The battle of Ivry, which ruins the league in France, 

IT Pope Urban VII. 

H Pope Gregory XrV. 

1591 The University of Dublin erected. 

H Pope Innocent IX. 

Uu «* 



m CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

AD. 

1592 Presbyterian Church Government established in Scotland. 

TI Pope Clement VIII. 

1594 The Bank of England incorporated. 

1598 Edict of Nantes, tolerating the Protestants in France. 

Peace of Verins concluded between France and Spain, 

Philip III. King of Spain. 

Tyrone's rebellion in Ireland. 

1600 

Gowrie's Conspiracy in Scotland. 

The Earl of Essex beheaded. 

The English East India Company established. 

7.602 Decimal Arithmetic invented at Bruges. 

1603 $ fltUtS I. King of Great Britain. Union of the crowns of England 

and Scotland. 
i605 The Gunpowder Plot discovered. 

IT Pope Paul V. 

1608 Galileo discovers the Satellites of Jupiter. 

Arminius propagates his opinions. 

1610 Henry IV. of France murdered by Ravaillac. 

Lewis III, King of France. 

-r— The Moors expelled from Spain by Philip III. 
— — Hudson's Bay discovered. 

1611 Baronets first created in England by James I. 

1612 MATTHIAS Emperor of Germany. 
1614 Logarithms invented by Napier. 

1616 Settlement of Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh. 

1618 The Synod of Dort in Holland. 

1619 Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood by Dr. Harvey. 

FERDINAND II. Emperor of Germany. 

Vanini burnt at Thoulouse for Atheism. 

1620 The Battle of Prague, by which the Elector Palatine loses his Elec- 

torate. 

The English make a settlement at Madras. 

Navarre united to France. 

1621 Philip IV. King of Spain. 

Batavia, in the Island of Java, built and settled by the Dutch. 

If Pope Gregory XV. 

1623 11 Pope Urban VIII. 

1625 <£f)atleS I. King of Great Britain. 

The Island of Barbadoes the first English settlement in the West 

Indies. 

1626 League of the Protestant Princes against the Emperor. 
1632 Guatavus Adolphus killed in the battle of Lutzen. 

Christina Queen of Sweden. 

1635 The French Academy instituted. 

1637 FERDINAND III. Emperor of Germany. 

1638 Bagdat taken by the Turks. 

The Solemn League and Covenant established in Scotland. 

1640 John Duke of Braganza recovers the kingdom of Portugal. 

1641 The Irish Rebellion, and Massacre of the Protestants, October 23. 
The Earl of Strafford beheaded. 

1642 Beginning of the Civil War in England. The battle of Edgehill, 

October 23. 

1643 Lewis XIV. King of France. 

Ann of Austria Regent of France. 

— — Archbishop Laud condemned by the Commons, and beheaded. 

1644 U Pone Innocent X. 

. Revolution in China by the Tartars. 

1645 Charles I. defeated in the battle of Naseby. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 507 

A.D. 

1648 The Peace of Westphalia. The Civil War of the Fronde at Pari*. 

1649 Charles I. of England beheaded. 
— — Commonwealth of England begins. 

1650 The Marquis of Montrose put to death. 

— — Battle of Dunbar. Covenanters defeated by Cromwell. 

1651 The battle of Worcester won by Cromwell. 

1652 Tiie first War between the English and Dutch. 

1654 End of the Commonwealth of England. Oliver Cromwell Lord Pro- 

tector. 

The English, under Admiral Penn, take possession of Jamaica. 

Christina Queen of Sweden resigns the Crown to Charles X. 

1655 tf Pope Alexander VII. 

1653 LEOPOLD I. Emperor of Germany. 

» - Richard Cromwell Lord Protector of England. 

1659 The Peace of the Pyrenees between France and Spain. 

1660 (&i)8Vlt8 II. King of Great Britain. Restoration of Monarchy. 

The Peace of Oliva between Sweden, Denmark, and Poland. 

1662 The Royal Society instituted in England. 

1663 Charter of Carolina, and a colony settled soon after. 

The French Academy of Inscriptions instituted. 

1664 The second Dutch War begins. 

1665 Charles II. King of Spain. 

Great Plague in London. 

1666 Great Fire in London. 

The Academy of Science instituted in France. 

Sabatei Levi, in Turkey, pretends to be the Messiah. 

1667 The Peace of Breda, which confirms to the English Pennsylvania, 

New- York, and New-Jersey. 

IT Pope Clement IX. 

1668 The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. 

1669 The Island of Candia taken by the Turks. 

1670 IT Pope Clement X. 

1672 Lewis XIV. conquers great part of Holland. 

The De Witts put to death in Holland. 

1674 John Sobieski King of Poland. 

1676 II Pope Innocent XL 

1678 The Peace of Niraeguen, July 31. 

■ The Habeas Corpus act passed in England. 

1679 The Long Parliament of Charles II. dissolved. 
1681 Peter the Great Czar of Muscovy. 

1683 Execution of Lord Russel, July 21. 

Execution of Algernon Sydney, December 7. 

The Siege of Vienna by the Turks raised by John Sobioaki. 

1685 $amZU II. King of Great Britain. 

Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Lewis XIV. 

Duke of Monmouth beheaded. 

1686 The Newtonian Philosophy first published in England. 

The League of Augsburg against France. 

1688 Revolution in Britain. King James abdicates tne throne, Decem- 

ber 23. 

1689 OTltiltant and J^atg King and Queen of Great Britain. 

Episcopacy abolished in Scotland by King William. 

U Pope Alexander VIII. 

1690 Battle of the Boyne, July 1. 

1691 IT Pope Innocent XII. 

1692 Battle of La Hogue, May 19. 

- — The Massacre of Glencoe in Scotland, January 31. O. S. 

Battle of Steedkirk. King William defeated by Luxemburg, Jul j 24 

. . — Hanover made the ninth Electorate of the Empire. 



508 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A. IK 

1695 Namur taken by King William, June 25. 
1697 Peace of Riswick concluded, September 11 

Charles XII. King of Sweden. 

1699 Peace of Carlovitz concluded, January 26. 
1700 

Philip V. King of Spain. 

If Pope Clement XI. 

170 1 Death of James II. at St. Germain's. 

1702 ^ttTHC Queen of Gteat Britain. Wai against France and Spain. 
The English and Dutch destroy the French Fleet at Vigo. 

The French send colonies to the Mississippi. 

1703 Gibraltar taken by Admiral Rooke, July 24. 

1704 Battle of Blenheim. The French defeated by Marlborough and 

Prince Eugene, August 2. 

Peter the Great founds St. Petersburgh. 

1705 The English take Barcelona. 

JOSEPH I. Emperor of Germany. 

1706 Battle of Ramilies. The French defeated by the Duke of Marlbo- 

rough, May 12. 
The Treaty of Union between England and Scotland, signed July 22 

1707 The battle of Almanza. The French and Spaniards, under the Duke 

of Berwick, defeat the allies, April 14. 

1708 Battle of Oudenarde. The French defeated by Marlborough and 

Eugene, June 30. 

Minorca taken by General Stanhope, September 18. 

1709 Battle of Pultowa. Charles XII. defeated by Czar Peter, June 30. 

Battle of Malplaquet. The French defeated by Marlborough and 

Eugene, September 11. 
1711 CHARLES VI. Emperor of Germany. 

1713 The Peace of Utrecht signed March 30. 

1714 (&tQVQZ I. Elector of Hanover, King of Great Britain. 

1715 Leiois XV. King of France. 

The Rebellion of Scotland. Battle of Sheriff-muir, November 13. 

1716 Prince Eugene defeats the Turks at Peterwaradin. 

1718 Charles XII. of Sweden killed at the sieg« of Frederickshall. 
1721 If Pope Innocent XIII. 

1724 If Pope Benedict XIII. 

1725 Death of Peter the Great, Czar of Muscovy Catharine Empress. 

1726 Great Earthquake at Palermo, August 21. 

1727 <&t0VQZ II. King of Great Britain. 

1727 Treaty of Copenhagen between Great Britain and Denmark. 

The Spaniards besiege Gibraltar, May 20. 

1728 Treaty between Great Britain and Holland, May 27. 

The Congress of Soissons, June 14. 

1729 Treaty of Seville between Great Britain, France, and Spain, Novem- 

ber 9. 

1730 IT Pope Clement XII. 

Christian VI. King of Denmark. 

The Persians under Kouli-Khan defeat the Turks. 

1731 Treaty between Great Britain, the Emperor, and King of Spain, 

July 22. 

1733 The Jesuits expelled from Paraguay, January. 

Frederick III. King of Poland. 

1734 Commercial Treaty between Great Britain and Russia, December 2. 

1735 The French defeat the Imperialists in Italy. 

1736 Peace between Spain and Austria. 

Kouli-Khan (Nadir-Schah) proclaimed King of Persia, September 29. 

1737 War declared between the Emperor and the Turks, July 2* 

1738 The Russians invade the Crimea. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. KMk 

A,l>. 6W 

1739 Nadir-Schah conquers the greater part of the Mogul Empire. 

Treaty between Great Britain and Denmark. ««»F»* 

Peace between the Emperor and the Turks, August 21 

- Peace between Russia and the Turks, November. 
1/40 Frederick III. (the Great) King of Prussia. 

IT Pope Benedict XIV. 

War between Poland and Hungary. 

1741 War declared between Russia and Sweden. 
— — The Prussians masters of Silesia, October 20. 
1/42 Peace between Austria and Prussia, June 11. 

Defensive Alliance between Great Britain and Prussia, November 18. 

— — - CHARLES VII. (of Bavaria) Emperor of Germany. 

1743 Defensive Alliance between Great Britain and Russia, February 

War in Germany between the British, Hungarians, French, and 

Austnans. ' 

-— — The French defeated by the allies at Dettingen, June 6. 

1744 War declared in Great Britain against France, March 31. 

The King of Prussia takes Prague. 

Commodore Anson completes his Voyage round the World 

1745 FRANCIS I. (of Lorraine) Emperor of Germany. 

Quadruple Alliance between Britain, Austria, Holland, and Poland. 

January 3. 

The allied army defeated by the French at Fontenoy, April 30. 

Louisburg and Cape Breton taken by the British troops, June 6. 

The Rebellion breaks out in Scotland, July. 

Treaty of Dresden between Prussia, Poland, Austria, and Saxony, 

December 25. 

1746 Ferdinand VI. King of Spain. 

Frederick V. King of Denmark. 

Count Saxe takes Brussels and Antwerp. 

Victory of Culloden, which puts an end to the Rebellion in Scotland. 

April 16. 

Lords Balmerino and Kilmarnock beheaded, August 18. 

Count Saxe defeats the allies at Raucoux, October 11. 

Dreadful Earthquake at Lima in Peru, October 17. 

1747 Kouli-Khan murdered. Revolution in Persia. 

1748 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle between Great Britain, France, Spain, Au 

tria, Sardinia, and Holland, October 7. 

1750 Joseph King of Portugal. 

Academy of Sciences founded at Stockholm. 

1751 Adoiphus of Holstem King of Sweden. 

Peace between Spain and Portugal. 

1752 New Style introduced in Britain, September, 3 reckoned 14. 

1753 The Brkish Museum established in Montague house. 

1754 Great Eruption of iEtna. 

Great Earthquake at Constantinople and Cairo, Septembers. 

1755 Lisbon destroyed by an Earth make, November 1. 

1756 War declared between Great llntain and France, May 18. 

1757 The King of Prussia conquers Silesia. 

1758 H Pope Clement XIII. 

1759 The French defeated by the allied army at Minden, August 1. 

Charles III. King of Spain. 

The Jesuits expelled from Portugal, September 3. 

General Wolfe takes Quebec in Canada, September 17. 

1760 Montreal and Canada taken by the British, September 8. 

iffieOrge HI. King of Great Britain, October 25. 

1762 Peter III. Emperor of Russia. 

. The Jesuits banished from France, August. 

Peace between Great Britain and France at Fontainebleau, Novem 

ber3. 

Uu2 



51< ) CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A. D. 

1763 Peace between Great Britain, France, and Spain, at Paris, February 10. 

Catharine II. Empress of Russia. 

1764 Stanislaus II. King of Poland. 

Byron's Discoveries in the South Seas. 

1765 JOSEPH II. Emperor of Germany. 

1766 The Jesuits expelled from Bohemia and Denmark. 

Christian VII. King of Denmark. 

1767 The Jesuits expelled from Spain, Genoa, and Venice. 

Discoveries of Wallis and Carteret in the South Seas. 

1768 Royal Academy of Arts established at London. 

The Jesuits expelled from Naples, Malta, and Parma. 

Bougainville's Discoveries in the South Seas. 

1769 IT Pope Clement XIV. 

Cook's first Discoveries in the South Seas. 

Corsica taken by the French, June 13. 

1770 Earthquake at St. Domingo. 

1771 Gustavus III. King of Sweden. 

1772 Revolution in Sweden, August 10. 

Poland dismembered by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. 

1773 Cook's second Voyage and Discoveries. 

. The Society of Jesuits suppressed by the Pope's bull, August 25. 

1774 Lewis XVI. King of France. 

1775 Battle of Bunker's Hill in North America, June 17. 

1776 IT Pope Pius VI. 

The Americans declare their Independence, July 4. 

1777 Mary Queen of Portugal. 

Surrender of the British Army under Burgoyne at Saratoga, in the 

state of New- York, October 17. 

1778 League between the French and Americans, October 30. 

1779 Peace between the Imperialists and Prussians, May 13. 

Great Eruption of Vesuvius, August 8. 

Siege of Gibraltar by the Spaniards, July. 

Captain Cook killed in the Island of Owyhee. 

1780 Great Riots in London on account of the Popish Bill, June 2. 
War declared between Great Britain and Holland, December 20. 

1781 Surrender of the British Army under Cornwallis to the Americans and 

French at Yorktown in Virginia, October 18. 

1782 Sir G. Rodney defeats the French fleet off Dominica, April 12. 

1783 Peace between Great Britain, France, and Spain, and the Independ 

ence of America declared, January 20. 

1784 Peace between Great Britain and Holland, May 24. 

1785 Treaty of Alliance between Austria, France, and Holland, Novera 

ber9. 

1786 Frederick IV. King of Prussia. 

1788 Defensive Alliance between England and Holland, April 25. 

1789 Selim III. Grand Seignior, April. 

George Washington first President of the United States, April. 

The Bastille at Paris taken and destroyed, and the Governor mass* 

cred, July 14. 

1790 Monastic Establishments suppressed in France, February 13. 

War commenced in India with Tippoo Sultan, May 1. 

LEOPOLD II. Emperor of Germany. 

1792 FRANCIS II. Emperor of Germany. 

Gustavus III. King of Sweden assassinated by Ankerstrom, March 29. 

Gustavus IV. King of Sweden. Duke of Sudermania Regent in his 

minority. 

The Thuilleries attacked. The King and Queen of France take 

refuge in tbe National Assembly. The Swiss guards massacred by 
the populace, August 10. 

The Royal Family of France imprisoned in the Temple, August 14. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 6n 

A.D. 

1798 A dreadful massacre of the state-prisoners at Paris, September 2, 3. 

The National Convention is constituted, the King deposed, and France 

declared a Republic, September 21 . 

Savoy incorporated with the French Republic, November 27. 

Lewis XVI. is brought to trial, and answers each article of accusation, 

December 14. 

1793 Lewis XVI. condemned to death by a majority of five voices, Janua- 

ry 17, and beheaded, January 21. 

Russia declares war against France, January 31. 

The French Convention declares war against England and Holland, 

February 1. 

Queen of France condemned to death and beheaded, October 15. 

1794 Robespierre, with his chief partisans, guillotined, July 28. 

1795 The Stadtholder takes refuge in England. Holland overrun by the 

French, January. 
— — Lyons bombarded, laid in ruins, and all its loyal inhabitants massacred, 
May. 

Lewis XVII. died in prison at Paris, June 8. 

The Cape of Good Hope taken by the British, September 16. 

Belgium incorporated with the French Republic, September 30. 

Stanislaus II. resigns the Crown of Poland. The kingdom divided 

between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, November 25. 

1796 The French overrun and plunder Italy. 

Death of Catharine II. Paul Emperor of Russia, November 17. 

1797 John Adams President of the United States, March 4. 

The Dutch Fleet beaten and captured by Admiral Duncan, Octo- 

ber 11. 

1798 The Papal Government suppressed by the French. The Pope quits 

Rome, February 26. 

Ireland in open rebellion, May, June, &c. 

Admiral Nelson destroys the French Fleet in the battle of the Nile, 

August 1. 

The Swiss finally defeated, and their Independence abolished, Sep- 

tember 19. 

1799 Seringapatam taken by General Harris, and Tippoo Sultan killed, 

May 4. 

Death of Pope Pius VI., September. 

A Revolution at Paris. Bonaparte declared First Consul, Decem- 

ber 25. 
1800 

Union of Britain and Ireland. 

Bonaparte defeats the Austrians in the battle of Marengo in Italy, 

June 14. 

Armistice between the French and Austrians in Germany, July 15. 

The new Pope, Pius VII., restored to his government by the Emperor, 

July 25. 
Malta taken by the British, September 5. 

1801 First meeting of the Imperial Parliament of Britain and Ireland, 

January. 

Thomas Jefferson President of the United States, March 4. 

Death of Paul. Alexander I. Emperor of Russia, March 23 

Battle of Copenhagen, in which the Danes are defeated by Lord Nel- 

son, April 3. 

1802 The Catholic Religion re-established in France, March. 
Treaty of peace between Britain and France. 

The King of Sardinia resigns his crown to his brother, July. 

Bonaparte declared Chief Consul for life, July. 

War between France, and Germany, and Russia, in which the Frencli 

are successful. 

1803 War between Britain and France 



6 £j CHKONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

1804 Emperor of Germany assumes the title of Emperor of Austria, Au- 

gust 11. 

Bonaparte croicned Emperor of France, December 2. 

1805 Bonaparte King of Italy, March. 

Lord Nelson defeats the combined fleets of France and Spain off Cape 

Trafalgar, takes or destroys 19 ships of the line, and is killed in the 
battle, October 21. 

War between England and Spain. 

1806 Louis Bonaparte crowned King of Holland, June. 

The British Parliament vote the Abolition of the Slave Trade, June 10. 

Francis II. resigns the office of Emperor of Germany, August 2. 

War between France and Prussia. 

Battle of Jena and total defeat of the Prussians, October 14. 

1807 War between France and Russia, in which the French are successful 

Copenhagen taken by the British, and the Danish fleet carried to Eng 

land. 

Treaty of Peace between France, and Russia, and Prussia. 

1808 Abolition of the Slave Trade in the United States of America, Janua- 

ry 1. 

War between Russia and Sweden. 

Bonaparte seizes Portugal, and the Royal Family flee to Brazil. 

Bonaparte seizes the Royal Family of Spain. War between Franca 

and Spain. 

1809 Battle of Corunna, January 16. 

Fall of Saragossa, February 21. 

James Madison President of the United States, March 4. 

Gustavus IV. King of Sweden deposed, and Charles XIII. proclaimed, 

March 13. 

War between France and Austria, April 6. 

— — French enter Vienna, May 12. 

- War between Russia and Austria, May 22. 

The Papal States united to France, June 1. 

Battle of Talavera, July 24. 

Peace of Vienna between Austria and France, October 14. 

1810 Bonaparte divorces the Empress Josephine, January 16. 

He marries the Arch-Duchess Maria Louisa of Austria, April 1. 

Louis Bonaparte abdicates the throne of Holland, July 1. 

Holland annexed to the French. 

Population of the United States, 7,239,903. 

1811 Prince of Wales appointed Regent, February 8. 

Two hundred buildings and large quantities of goods burnt in New 

buryport, Mass. 
Massacre in Cairo, when about 1,000 Mamelukes lost their live* 

March 1. 
A Son born to Napoleon Bonaparte, styled King of Rome, March 20 

Batavia captured by the English, August 8. 

An unusually large comet appeared, September 1 

Richmond Theatre burnt, December 26. 

1812 Great Earthquake at Carraccas, March 26 

Perceval, Prime Minister of England, assassinated, May 11. 

War against Great Britain declared by the United States, June 18 

- General Hull and his army taken prisoners in Canada, August 16. 

Battle of Smolensko, August 17. 

Battle of Moskwa, September 7. 

The French army enter Moscow, 14th September. 

British Frigate Guerriere captured, August 29.^ 

do. do. Macedonia captured, October 25. 

do. do. Java captured, December 29. 

1613 Lewis XVIII. publishes an Address to the people of France, Fab 
ruary 1. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 51* 

AD. 

1813 Treaty between Great Britain and Sweden, March 3. 

Sweden declares War against France, March 3. 

The Russian troops enter Hamburgh, March 18. 

Prussia joins Russia against France, March. 

Spanish Inquisition abolished by the Cortes, April. 

Battle of Vittoria, in Spain, June 2. 

Austria declares War against France, August 11. 

General Moreau killed, August 28. 

Commodore Perry captures the British squadron, on lake Erie, Sep- 

tember 10. ' r 

Battle of Leipsic, October 19. 

The Prince of Orange assumes the title of Sovereign Prince of the 

Netherlands, December 2. 

The Russians and their Allies enter France, December 23. 

1814 The Pope released by Bonaparte, January 23. 

Lord Wellington took possession of Bordeaux, February 13. 

Paris capitulates to the Allies, March 30. 

Tho Allies enter Paris, April 1. 

Napoleon Bonaparte dethroned, April 4, and banished to the Island of 

Elba, for which he sails, April 28. 

Louis XVIII., being called to the throne of France, mado his entry 

into Paris, May 3. 

General Peace in Europe, May 30. 

The Allied Sovereigns visit London, June 8. 

Inquisition restored in Spain, July 18. 

Norway annexed to Sweden, August 14. 

City of Washington taken by the British, August 24. 

British Squadron on Lake Champlain captured by Commodore M'Don- 

ough, September 11. 
■ > General Congress of Vienna, November 7. 
. Pensacola taken by General Jackson, November 7. 

Treaty of Peace between the United States and Great Britain signed 

at Ghent, December 24. 

The British repulsed at New-Orleans, December 28. 

1815 The British completely defeated and General Packenham slain at 

New-Orleans, January 8. 

United States Frigate President taken by a British squadron, Janua- 

ry 15. 
Peace between Great Britain and the United States ratified Februa- 
ry 24. 

Bonaparte sailed from Elba, February 2(3 — lands in France, March 1— 

enters Paris, March 26. 

Bonaparte left Paris to meet the Allies, May 2. 

Battle of Waterloo, June 17 and 18. 

Bonaparte surrenders himself to the British, July 15. 

Joachim Murat, King of Naples, shot for High Treason, October 13. 

Bonaparte landed at St. Helena, October 13. 

Marshal Ney shot for High Treason, December 7. 

1816 Jesuits expelled from Petersburgh and Moscow, January 2. 

St. Johns, Newfoundland, destroyed by fire, February 18. 

Princess Charlotte of Wales married to Prince Leopold, May 2. 

Lord Cochrane tried for breaking out of Prison, August 17. 

He is released by a penny subscription, December 7. 

Indiana admitted into the Union as a State, December. 

1817 United States Bank opened for business at Philadelphia, January 1. 

American Colonization Society for free Blacks organized, January 1, 

James Monroe President of the United States, March 4. 

Pernambuco declared itself Independent, April 5. 

Portuguese authority established at Pernambuco, May 18. 

— Dey of Algiers assassinated, September. 

65 



1614 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A. D. ! 

1817 Death of Princess Caroline, November 6. 

Mississippi admitted into the Union as a State, December 11 • 

1818 Queen of England dies. 

Charles XIII. of Sweden dies, and is succeeded by Prince Bernadotte 

France evacuated by the Allies, October. 

Illinois admitted into the Union as a State, December 4. 

Commercial Treaties concluded between the United States on one 

part and Great Britain and Sweden on the other. 

Alleghany College established. 

1819 A Treaty for the cession of Florida to the United States signed at 

Washington, February 23. 
— — First Steam Ship sails for Europe, May. 

Commodore Perry dies in the West Indies, August 23. 

Alabama admitted into the Union as a State, December. 

1820 George III., King of England, dies January 29. 

($xt OtQZ IV. succeeds to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland. 

The Duke of Berry assassinated, February 14. 

— — Maine admitted into the Union as a State. 

— — Queen Caroline of England prosecuted for Adultery. 
— — Another Revolution, which gives a Free Constitution to the Spanish 
nation. 

Population of the United States, 9,625,734. 

1821 Missouri admitted into the Union as a State. 

An attempt to destroy the Royal Family of France, January 27. 

British Government issue a Manifesto respecting the Holy Alliance, 

February. 
— — Napoleon Bonaparte dies at St. Helena, May 5, 1821, aged 52. 
— — Queen Caroline of England dies, August 7, 1821. 
-— ■■■ Elias Boudinot, President of the American Bible Society, dies. 

1822 William Pinckney dies, February 26. 

Iturbide declared himself Emperor of Mexico. 

■ Columbian College established. 

Massacre of Greeks at Scio. 

Revolution in Portugal with a Cortes and Free Constitution. 

— — Don Pedro, son of the King of Portugal, declared Emperor of Bi Jtils 

1823 Iturbide dethroned and banished to Italy. 

France declares War against Spain, and invades it with a large army 

— — Counter Revolution in Portugal. 

- Treaty of Peace between Spain and Buenos Ayres, July 4. 



COMPARATIVE VIEW 



ANCIENT 



AND OF 



MODERN GEOGRAPHY. 



In the following Tables the Countries unknown to Ancients, or of which 
the Names are uncertain, are left blank. 

The same numbers in the two adjacent columns on each page indicate the 
ancient and modern names of the same countries or places. 



MODERN EUROPE. ANCIENT EUROPE. 

GREENLAND, or the Arctic Conti- 
nent. 

SPITSBERGEN (Island.) 

ICELAND, (Island,) belonging to 
Norway. 

NORWAY. SCANDINAVIA, SCANDIA, vei 

1. Wardhuis, or Norwegian Lap- BALTIA. 

land. 

2. Drontheim. 2. Nerigon. 

3. Bergen. 3. Sitones. 

4. Aggerhuis, or Christiana. 

SWEDEN. 

1. Lapland and West Bothnia. 1. Scritofinni. 

2. Sweden Proper. 2. Suiones. 

3. Gothland. 3. Gutas et Hilleviones. 

4. Finland. 4 Finningia. 

5. Islands of Gothland— Oeland, 5 Insula? Sinus Cedani. 

Aland, Rugen. 

DENMARK. 

Jutland. Chersonesus Cimbrica* 

1. Alburg. 1. Cimbri. 

2. Wyburg. 



516 COMPARATIVE VIEW OF 

MODERN EUROPE, ANCIENT EUROPE. 



3. Aarhusen. 

4. Rypen. 

5. Sleswick. 

Islands in the Baltic. 

1. Zealand. 

2. Funen. 

3. Falster. 

4. Longeland. 

5. Laland. 

6. Feneren. 

7. Alsen. 

8. Mocn. 

9. Bornholm. 

RUSSIA IN EUROPE. 

1. Livonia and Estonia. 

2. Ingria, or the Government of 

Petersburg. 

3. Carelia, or the Government of 

Wiburg. 

4. Novogrod. 

5. Archangel, Samoiedia. 
S. Moscow. 

7. Nishnei Novogrod. 

8. Smolenski. 

9. Kiew. 

10. Bielgorod. 

11. Woronesk. 

12. Azoff. 

FRANCE. 

1. Picardy. 

2. Isle of France. 

3. Champagne. 

4. Normandy. 

5. Bretany. 

6. Orleannois. 



7. Lionnois. 

8. Provence. 
9* Languedoc. 

10. Guiennc. 

11. Gascoigne. 

12. Dauphine. 

13. Burgundy and Franche-cemte. 

14. Lorraine and Alsace. 

UNITED PROVINCES, OR KING- 
DOM OF HOLLAND. 

1. Holland. 

2. Friesland. 

3. Zealand. 

4. Groningen. 

5. Overyssel. 



3. Harudes. 

4. Phundusii, Sigulones. 

5. Sabalingii. 

Insula Sinus Codani. 
1, 2. Teutones. 



SARMATIA EUROPiEA 
1. Hirri et iEstii vel Ostionef , 



4. Budini. 
6. Basilici. 
8. Cariones. 

10 & 4. Budini. 

11. Roxolani. 

12. lazyges. 

GALLIA. 

1. Ambiani. 

2. Bellovaci, Parisii, Suessonea. 

3. Remi, Catalauni, Tricasses, 13 

Lingones. 

4. Unelli vel Veneti, Saii, Lex-' 

ovii, Veliocasses. 

5. Osismii, Veneti, Namnetes, 

Andes, Redonee. 

6. Aureliani, Carnutes, Seno- 

nes, Turones, Pictones, 
Bituriges. 

7. iEdui, Segusiani. 

8. Salyes, Cavares. 

9. Volcae, Arecomici, Helvii, To> 

losates. 

10. Petrocorii, Bituriges, Cadurci, 

Ruteni. 

11. Aquitani. 

12. Allobroges, Centrones. 

13. Lingones, ^Edui, Sequani. 

14. Leuci, Mediomatrici, Tribooi» 

Nemetes. 



c2 



SAXONES. 



1, 2. Frisit 



4. Cauci vel Chauei 

5. Franci. 



ANOTSNT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY. sir 

MODERN EUROPE. ANCIENT EUROPE. 



6. Guelderland and Zutphen, 

7. Utrecht. 



6. Bructeri, Catti, Sicambri. 

7. Batavi. 



NETHERLANDS, 






•SLONGING TO FRANCE AND HOLLAND. 


BELGiE, Ac. 


1. Brabant. 


1. Menapii, Tungrii. 


2. Antwerp. 


2. Toxandri. 


3. Mechlen or Malines. 




4. Limburgh. 


4, 5. Alemanni. 


5. Luxemburgb. 




6. Namur. 


6. TreverL 


7. Hainault. 


7. Remi. 


8. Cambreais. 




9. Artoie. 


9. Atrebates, Veromandui. 


10. Flanders. 


10. Belgse, Morini. 


GERMANY. 


NATIONES GERMANIC/E. 


1. Upper Saxony. 


1. Seuvi, Ling®, &c. 




2. Lower Saxony. 


2. Saxones, Longobardi, Gam- 

brivii. 

3. Cherusci, Chamavi, Gauchi, 


1 

> a 


3. Westphalia. 




Germania Inferior. 


33 


4. Upper Rhine. 


4. Germania Superior 


03 


5. Lower Rhine. 


5. Marci, Tinderi. 




6. Franconia. 


6. Marcomanni, Heitaonduri. 


7. Austria. 


7. Noricum. 


8. Bavaria. 


8. Rheetia. 


9. Saabia. 


9. Yindelicia. 


BOHEMIA. 




1. Bohemia Proper. 


1. Boiohoemuro. 


2. Silesia. 


2. Corconti. 


3. Moravia. 


3. Quadi. 


POLAND. 


GERMANOSARMATiE. 


1. Greater Poland. 


1. Peucini. 


2. Less Poland. 


2. Lugii. 


3. Prussia Royal. 


3, 4. Burgundiones, Rugii, G*- 


4. Prussia Ducal. 


thones. 


5. Samogitia. 


5. Ombroges. 


6. Courland. 


6. Scyri. 


7. Lithuania. 


7 t 6. Germano-Sarmatia. 


8. Warsovia. 




9. Polachia. 




10. Polesia. 




11. Red Russia. 


11, 12, ia Bastams. 


12. Podolia. 




13. Yolhinia. 




SPAIN. 


HISPANIA, vel IBERIA. 


1. Gallicia. 


1, 2, 3. Galleecia — Cantabri, As- 


2. Asturia. 


tures, Varduli. 


3. Biscay. 




4. Navarre. 


4, 5, 6. Tarraconensia— Vascones, 


5. Arragon. 

6. Catalonia. 


Valetani. 




7. Valentia. 


7, 8. Carthaginensis iEditani, 


8. Murcia. 


Contestani 


9. Granada. 


9, 10. Beetica — Bastiani, Bastuli, 


10- Andalusia. 


Turdetani, &c. 





618 COMPARATIVE VIEW OF 

MODERN EUROPE. ANCIENT EUROPE. 



11. Old Castile. 


11. Gallaecise pars — Accaei, Arevaci. 


12. New Castile. 


12. Tarraconensis para — Carpetani, 




Oretanj. 


13. Leon. 


13. OaHaciae pars — Vettones. 


14. Estremadura. 


14. Lusitaniae pars — Baeturia. 


SPANISH ISLANDS. 


INSULiE HISPANIC*. 


Ivica. 


Baleares. 


Majorca. 




Minorca. 




PORTUGAL. 


LUSITANIA. 


Entre Minho e Douro. 


Calliaci, Lusitani, Celtici. 


Tralos JHQOtes. 




Beira. 




Estremadvra 




Entre Tajo. 




Alentajo. 




Algarva. 




SWITZERLAND. 


HELVETIA. 


t. Bern. 


1, 2, 3, 4. Ambrones. 


2. Friburg. 




3. Basil or Bale. 




4. Lucem. 




5. Soloturn. 




6. Schaffhausen. 


6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Tigurini. 


7. Zurick. 




8. Appenzel. 




9. Zug. 




10. Schweitz. 




11. Glaris. 




12- Uri. 




13. Underwald. 




14. Geneva. 


14. Nantuates. 


15. Grisons, <fec< 


15. Veragri, Vallis Pennina, L«- 




pontii. 


ITALY. 


ITALIA. 


1. Savoy. 


1. Lepontii, Segusini, Taa-' 






rini. 


© 


2. Piedmont. 


$. Orobi. \ 


> 


3. Montfenrat. 


4:insubre8.( Li « uria ' 


id 


4. Milan. 


It 


5. Genoa. 


5. ) 


6. Parma. 


6. Anamani. 


V 


7. Modena. 


7. Boii. 


8. Mantua. 


8. Cenomani. 


SS 


9. Venice. 


9. Venetia. 


5 


10. Trent. 


10. Tridentini. J 




11. The Popedom. 


11. Lingones, Senones, Picnum, Urn- 




bna, Sabini, Pars Latii. 


12. Tuscany. 


12. Tuscia vel Etruria. 


13 Lucca. 


13. Pars Tusciae. 


14. San Marino. 


14. Pars Umbriae. 


15. Kingdom of Naples. 


15. Samnium, Pars Latii* Apulia, 




Campania, Lucania, Bruttiura. 


ITALIAN ISLANDS. 


INSULA ITALICiE. 


1. Sicily. 

2. Sardinia. 


1. Si cilia, Sicania, vel Trinacria. 


2. Sardo, vel Sardinia. 


3. Corsica. 


3. Cyrnus, vel Corsica. 


4. Malta. 


4. Melita. 





ANCIENT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY. 



61# 



MODERN EUROPE. 



ANCIENT EUROPE. 



5. Lipari Islands. 




5. 


Lipariae Insulae. 


6. Capri, Ischia, &c. 
HUNGARY. 




6. Capreae, Ischia, &c. 


TRANSYLVANIA. 




DACIA. 


SCLAVONIA. 




PANNONIA. 


CROATIA. 




ILLYRICUM. 


TURKEY IN EUROPE. 




1. Dalmatia. 




1 Dalmatia. 


2. Bosnia. 




2. Maesia Superior. 


3. Servia. 




3. Dacia Ripensis. 


4. Wallachia. 




4. Getoe. 


5. Moldavia and Bessarabia. 


5. Pars Dacia? . 


6. Bulgaria. 




6. Maesia Inferior. 


7. Albania. 






7. Epirus. 

8. Macedonia. 


8. Macedonia. 






9. Romania. 






9. Thracia. 


10. Livadia. 




*3 


10. Thessalia. 


11. Morea. 




S 1 


11. Peloponnesus. 

12. Scythia et pars Dacis. 

13. Parva Scythia. 

14. Taurioa Chersonesu. 


12. Budziac Tartary or 


Bessarabia. 


e 


13. Little Tartary. 






14. Crimea. 






GREEK ISLANDS. 


INSULiE MARIS IONII. 


1. Corfu. 




1. Corcyra. 


2. Cephalonia. 




2. Cephalenia. 


3. Zante. 




3. Zacynthus. 


4. Ithace, Thiace, &c. 




4. Ithaca, &c. 


GREEK ISLANDS 


IN THE 




ARCHIPELAGO. 


INSULA MARIS JEGJEl 


1 Candia. 




1. Creta. 


2. Negropont. 

3. Stalimene. 




2. Eubcea 

3. Lemnos. 


4. Scyro, &c. 




4. Scyros, <fec. 




GREAT BRITAIN. 


SCOTLAND. 


SCOTIA. 


1. Edinburgh. 

2. Haddington. 




1 JDamnii. ? Vecturiones. 


3. Berwick. 




3. Ottodini. ) 


4. Roxburgh. 




1 ) 


5. Selkirk. 

6. Dumfries. 




I [Selgov». 


7. Kircudbright. 




7. ) 


8. Peebles. 




9 ) 


9. Wigton. 
10. Lanerk. 




10 I Novantes. 


11. Air. 




ii. J 


12. Dumbarton. 




12. } \ 


13. Bute. 




13 - f f . 


14. Renfrew. 




14. > Damnii. > Picti. 


15. Stirling. 




\l \ \ 


16. Linlithgow. 




16. ) J 


17. Fife. 




« ) ) 


18. Clackmannan. 




J°' > Caledonu. > Picti. 


19. Kinross. 




i 1 1 


20. Perth. 




20. ' 


81. Argyle. 




21. 


Epidii, GaJwii, Ceronet . 



620 COMPARXf 1VE ViEW OF 

MODfettN feUttO*»E. ANCIENT EtfttOPE. 

22. Vernicones. 

23. Horesta>. 

24. ) VAttacoti. 

Taezali. 

Vacomagi. 

Cant®, f 

[ertae. ) 

33. Orcades. 

34. Thule. 
ANGLIA. 

1* I Damnonii. 
3. Durotriges. 

4 - ) 

5. > Beige. 

6. S 



22. 


Kincardine. 


23. 


Forfar. 


24. 


Aberdeen. 


25. 


Banff. 


26. 


Elgin. 
Nairn. 


27. 


28. 


Inverness. 


29. 


Ross. 


30. 


Cromarty. 


31. 


Southerland. 


32. 


Caithness. 


33. 


Orkney. 


34. 


Shetland. 




ENGLAND. 


1. 


Cornwall. 


2. 


Devonshire. 


3. 


Dorsetshire. 


4. 


Hampshire^ 


5. 


Somersetshire. 


6. 


Wiltshire. 


7. 


Berkshire. 


8. 


Oxfordshire. 


9. 


Gloucestershire. 


10. 


Monmouthshire. 


11. 


Herefordshire. 


12. 


Worcestershire. 


13. 


Staffordshire. 


14. 


Shropshire. 


15. 


Essex. 


16. 


Hartfordshire. 


17. 


Kent. 


18 


Surry. 


19. 


Sussox. 


20. 


Norfolk. 


21 


Suffolk. 


22 


Cambridgeshire. 


23 


Huntingdonshire. 


24 


Bedfordshire. 


25 


Buckinghamshire. 


26 


Lincolnshire. 


27 


Nottinghamshire. 
Derbyshire. 


28 


29 


Rutlandshire. 


30 


Leicestershire. 


31 


Warwickshire. 


32 


Northamptonshire. 


33 


Northumberland. 


34 


Durham. 


35 


Yorkshire. 


36 


Lancashire. 


87 


Westmoreland. 


38 


Cumberland. 


39 


Cheshire. 


4(1 


Middlesex. 



Scoti. 



Silures. 



7. Attrebatii. 
|* ^Dobuni. 

io! 

11. 
12. 

13. VCornavii. 

14. 

15. Trinobarrtes. 

16. Catieuchlani. 

17. Cantii. 



Simoni, vel Ieeni. 



20. 

21. 

22. 

23. V Catienchlani. 

24. 

25. Attrebatii. 

26. -v 

27. / 

28. VCoritani. 

29. V 

30. J 

31. Cornavi. 

32. Catieuchlani. 




38. 

39. uornavu. 

40. Attrebates et Catieuchlani. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY. 681 

MODERN EUROPE. ANCIENT EUROPE. 



WALES. 



1. Anglesey. 

2. Flintshire. 

3. Montgomery. 

4. Denbighshire. 

5. Carnarvonshire. 

6. Merioneth. 

7. Cardiganshire. 

8. Carmarthenshire. 

9. Pembrokeshire. 

10. Radnorshire. 

11. Brecknocksnire. 

12. Glamorganshire. 

IRELAND. 



1. Louth. 

2. Meath East. 

3. Meath West. 

4. Longford. 

5. Dublin. 

6. Kildare. 

7. King's County. 

8. Queen's County. 

9. Wicklow. 

10. Carlow. 

11. Wexford. 
k 12. Kilkenny. 

' 13. Donnegal or Tyrconnel. 

14. Londonderry. 

15. Antrim. 

16. Tyrone. 

17. Fermanagh. 

18. Armagh. 

19. Down. 

20. Monaghan. 



^ 



21. Cavan. 

22. Cork County. 

23. Waterford. 

24. Tipperary. 

25. Limorick. 

26. Kerry. 

27. Clare. 



g f28. Galway. 
'w> 29. Roscommon. 
3 \ 30. Mayo. 
e 31. Sligoe. 
Q [32. Leitrim. 

BRITANNIC ISLANDS 

1. Shetland and Orkney. 

2. Western Isles of Scotland. 

3. Man. 

4. Anglesey. 

5. Wight Xft 



1. Mona Insula. 
2. 

Ordovices. 



Demetse. 



Silures. 



HIBERNIA,vel IRENE. 

1. Voluntii. 

3 SCauci. 

4. Auteri. 

5. 

6. 

7. 
8. 
9. 

I j > ManapiL 

12. Coriondi. 

13. Vennicnii. 

14. ) 

15. >Robogdii. 

16. S 

17. Erdini. 



Blanii. 

Corondi. 
(lanii. 



Voluntii. 



21. Cauci. 

22. Vodiffl, Inverni. 
' Brigantea. 

Velabori. 



Gangani. 

LUteri. 
JO. ) 
il. > Nagnats. 

Kb. j 

INSULiE BRITANNIC^ 

1. Thule. 

2. Ebudes Insuls9. 

3. Monaeda vel Mona, 

4. Mona. 

5. Vectis. 

66 



S2« COMPARATIVE VlfeW OF 

MODERN ASIA. ANCIENT ASIA. 



TURKEY IN ASIA. 


ASIA MINOR. 


1. Natolia. 


1. Mysla, Lydia, Caria, Phrygia, 

Bithynia, Galatia, Paphlago- 
nia. 

2. Pontui. 




2. Amasia or Siwas. 


3. Aladulia. 


3. Armenia. 


4. Caramania. 


4. Cappadoeia, Cilicia, &c. 

5. Babylonia, Chaldea. 


5. Irak. 


6. Diarbeck. 


6. Mesopotamia. 


7. Curdistan. 


7. Assyria. 


8. Turcomania. 

9. Georgia. 


a" > Armenia Major. 


10 Syria and Palestine. 


10. Syria, Palmyrene, Phcenicia, Jo- 
daM. 

ARABIA. 


ARABIA. 


Arabia Petreea. 


Arabia Petrcea. 


Arabia Deserta. 


Arabia Deserta. 


Arabia Felix. 


Arabia Felix. 


PERSIA. 


PERSIA. 


1. Chorassan. 


1. Pars Hyrcanise et Sogdiaius. 


2. Balk, Seblustan, Candahar. 


2. Bactrania. 


3. Sigistan. 


3. Drangiana. 


4. Makeran. 


4. 


5. Kerman. 


5. Gedrosia. 


6. Farsistan. 


6. Persis. 


7. Chusestan. 


7. Susiana. 


8. Irak Agem. 


8. Parthia. 


9. Curdestan. 


9. Pars Assyria. 


10. Aderbeitzen. 


10. Media. 


11. Georgia. 


11. ) 


12. Gangea. 


12. } Iberia, Colchis, et Albania. 


13. Dagestan. 


13. S 


14. Mazanderam. 




15. Gilan Taberistan. 


15. Pars Hyrcanise. 

16. Pars Albanise. 


16. Chirvan. 


INDIA. 


INDIA. 


Mogol. 


Indie intra Gangem. 


Delhi. 


Palibothra. 


Agra. 


Agora. 


Cambaia. 


Regna Pori et Taxiris. 


Bengal. 




India within the Ganges. 




Decan. 


Dachanos. 


Golconda. 


Prasii vel Gangarids. 


Bisnagar. 




Malabar. 


Male. 


Island of Ceylon. 


Taprobana Insula vel Salice. 


India beyond the Ganges. 


India extra Gangem. 


Pegu 




Tonquin 
Cochinchina 






Siam. 


Sinarum Regio. 




CHINA. 


Niuche. 




Corea. 





ANCIENT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY. 



MODERN ASIA. 



ANCIENT ASIA. 



Laotong. 


mam. 


Pekin. 




Xansi. 


Serica. 


Xensi. 




Xantum. 


Cathwu 


Nanking. 




Chekiam. 




Honan. 




Huquam. 




Kiarasi. 




Fokien. 




Canton. 




Suchuen. 




Quecheu. 




Ifunara. 




CHINESE ISLANDS. 


Formosa. 




Ainan. 




Macao. 




Bashee Islands. 


. 


RUSSIA IN ASIA. 


1. Astracan. 


1. Sarmatia Asiatics. 


2. Orenburg. 


2. ^ 


3. Casan. 

4. Siberia — Tobolsk, Jeniseia, Ir- 


J > Scythia .intra Imai 


kutsk, Kamschatka. 


) 


INDEPENDENT TARTARY. 


1. Great Bucharia. 


1. Bactriana, Sogdiant. 


2. Karasm. 


2. Aria. 


ALUTH TARTARS. 


SCYTHIA extra 11 


1. Little Bucharia. 


1. 


2. Casgar. 

3. Turkestan. 


2. 


3. 


4. Kabnac Tartars. 


4. 


5. Thibet. 


5. 


6. Little Thibet. 


6, 


CHINESE TARTARY. 


B1NM, 


Kalkas. 




Mongol Tartars. 




Mantchou Tartars. 




Corea. 




ISLANDS OF CHINESE TAR. 




TARY. 




Sagalien-Ula-hata. 




Jedso. 




ISLANDS OF JAPAN. 




Japan or Niphon. 




Xicoco. 




Ximo. 




PHILIPPINE ISLES. 




Lucon or Manilla. 




Mindanao, &c. 




MARIAN OR LADRONE 




ISLANDS. 




Tinian. 





684 COMPARATIVE VIEW OF 

MODERN ASIA. ANCIENT ASIA. 

ISLES OF SUNDA 

Borneo. 
Sumatra. 
Java, &c. 

MOLUCCA ISLES 

Celebes. 

Amboyna. 

Ceram. 

Timor. 

Flores, &c. 

MALDIVA ISLES. 



MODERN AFRICA. 



ANCIENT AFRICA. 



BARBARY. 

1. Morocco. 

2. Algiers. 

3. Tunis. 

4. Tripoli. 

5. Barca. 

1. Egypt. 

2. BlLDULGERID. 

3. Zaara, or the Desert. 

4. Negroland. 

5. Guinea. 

6. Upper Ethiopia 



Nubia, Abyssinia, Abex. 

7. Lower Ethiopia 

8. Lower Guinea- 



Loango, Congo, Angola, Ben- 
guela, Matanan. 
9. Ajan. 

10. Zanguebar. 

11. Monomotapa. 

12. monoemugi. 
13* Sofola. 

14. Terra de Natal. 

15. Cafraria, or country of the 

Hottentots. 



1. Mauritania Tingitana. 

2. Mauritania Caesariensis. 

3. Numidia, Africa Propria. 

4. Tripolitana. 

5. Cyrenaica, Libya Superior. 

1. iEGTPTUS. 

2. Libya Inferior, Gatulia. 

3. solitudines. 

4. autololes. 

6. ^Ethiopia et Libya pars. 

7. /Ethiopia pan. 



NORTH AMERICA. 

BRITISH AMERICA. 

1. The countries on the east and west side of Baffin's and Hudson's Bays 

2. Labrador, or New Britain. 

3. Canada. 

4. Nova Scotia. 



Newfoundland, Cape Breton. 



Islands. 



British Islands in the West Indies. 

Bermudas, Bahama Islands, Jamaica, St. Christopher's, Nevis, Montserrat 
Antigua, Dominica, St. Vincent, Tobago, Grenada, Barbadoes, Ac &e> 



ANCIENT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY. 52j 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 

New England- Maine, New-Hampghire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connect- 
icut, and Rhode-Island. 

State of New- York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Vir- 
ginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, 
Ohio, Indiana, Louisiana, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Illinois. 

The district of Columbia, the territories of Michigan, Arkansas. 

SPANISH AMERICA. 
Mexico or New Spain, New Mexico. 

NORTH AMERICA. 

Spanish Islands in the West Indies. 

Cuba, Porto Rico, west part of St. Domingo, Trinidad, Margarita, Cuba 
gua, &c. 

Dutch Islands in the West indies. 

Part of St. Martin's Isle, Eustatius, Aves, Buenos Ayres, Curacoa, Araba. 

French Islands in the West Indies. 
Miquelon, St. Pierre, part of St. Martin's Isle, St. Bartholomew, Martinioo, 
Guadaloupe, Desiada, MariegaJant, St. Lucia, part of St. Domingo. 

Danish Islands in the West Indies. 
St. Thomas, Santa Cruz. 

SOUTH AMERICA. 

FRENCH. 
Part of the Province of Guiana, Cayenne, &c. 

SPANISH. 

Terra Firma, Country of the Amazons, Peru, Chili, Tern MagellesJca, 
Paraguay, Tucuman. 

DUTCH. 
Part of Guiana, Surinam, Ac. 

PORTUGUESE. 
Brazil, and many Islands on the coast, part of Gtusm 



ANCIENT EMPIRES. 

The Empire of Assyria, under Ninus and Semiramis, about S 
J. C, comprehended, Asia Minor, Colchis, Assyria, Media CfaaU**, 
Egypt. 



626 COMPARATIVE VIEW OF 

The Empire of Assyria, as divided about 820 before J. C, formed three 
Kingdoms, Media, Babylo-Chaldea, (Syria and Chaldea,) Lydia, (all 
Asia Minor.) 

The Empire of the Persians, under Darius Hystaspes, 522 before J. C, 
comprehended, Persis, Susiana, Chaldea, Assyria, Media, Bactriana, 
Armenia, Asia, Parthia, Iberia, Albania, Colchis, Asia Minor, Egypt, 
part of Ethiopia, part of Scythia. 

The Empire of Alexander the great, 330 before J. C, consisted of, 
1, all Macedonia and Greece, except Peloponnesus ; 2, all the Persian 
Empire, as above described ; 3, India to the banks of the Indus on the 
east, and the Iaxartes or Tanais on the north. 

The Empire of Alexander was thus divided, 306 before J. C, between 
Ptolemy, Cassander, Lysimachus, and Seleucus. 

Empire of Ptolemy. 

Lybia, Arabia, Coelosyria, Palestine. 

Empire of Cassander. 



Macedonia, Greece. 
Thrace, Bithynia. 



Empire of Lysimachus. 



Empire of Seleucus. 

Syria, and all the rest of Alexander's Empire. 

The Empire of the Parthians, 140 before J. C, comprehended Parthia, 
Hyrcania, Media, Persis, Bactriana, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, India to 
the Indus. 

The Roman Empire, under the Kings, was confined to the city of Rome, 
and a few miles round it. 

The Roman Empire, at the end of the Republic, comprehended all Italy, 
great part of Gaul, part of Britain, Africa Proper, great part of Spain, 
Illyria, Istria, Liburnia, Dalmatia, Achaia, Macedonia, Dardania, Mcesia, 
Thracia, Pontus, Armenia, Judaea, Cilicia, Syria, Egypt. 

Under the Emperors the following countries were reduced into Romao 
Provinces. 

All Spain, the Alpes Maritimae, Piedmont, &c. Rheetia, Noricum, Panno- 
nia, and Mcesia, Pontus, Armenia, Assyria, Arabia, Egypt. 

Constantius Chlorus and Galerius divided the Empire into Eastern and 
Western ; and under Constantino each Empire had a distinct capital or 
seat of government. 

The extent of each division was fluctuating from time to time ; but, in gen 
eral, the Western Empire comprehended Italy, Illyria, Africa, Spain, 
the Gauls, Britain. 

The Eastern Empire comprehended Asia Minor, Pontus, Armenia, Assyria, 
Media, &c. Egypt, Thrace, Dacia, Macedonia. 



ANCIENT AND MODERN GEOGRAPHY. 



5f7 



The Empire of Charlemagne, A. D. 800, comprenended France, Marca, 
Hispanica, (or Navarre and Catalonia,) Majorca, Minorca, and Ivica, 
Corsica, Italy as far south as Naples, Istria, Liburnia, Dalmatia Rhaetia, 
Vindelica, Noricum, Germany, from the Rhine to the Oder, and to the 
banks of the Baltic. 

France contained, 1, Neustria, comprehending Bretany, Normandy, Isle of 
France, Qrleannois ; 2, Austria, comprehending Picardy, and Cham- 
pagne ; 3, Aquitania, comprehending Guienne, and Gascony ; 4, Burgun- 
dia, comprehending Burgundy, Lionnois, Languedoc, Dauphme, Provence. 



NAMES OF THE PRINCIPAL RIVERS IN EUROPE 



ANCIENT. 

1. Rha. 

2. Tanais. 

3. Borystenes 

4. Tyras. 

5. Danubius or later. 

6. Padus. 

7. Rhodanus. 

8. Iberus. 

9. Boetis. 

10. Anas. 

11. Tagus. 

12. Durius. 

13. Garumna. 

14. Liger. 

15. Sequana. 

16. Samara. 

17. Scaldia. 

18. Mosa. 

19. Rhenua 

20. Visurgia. 

21. A Ibis. 

22. Viadrufl. 



MODERN. 

1. Wolga. 

2. Don. 

3. Nieper. 

4. Niester. 

5. Danube. 

6. Po. 

7. Rhone. 

8. Ebro. 

9. Guadalquiver. 

10. Guadiana. 

11. Tayo. 

12. Douro. 

13. Garonne. 

14. Loire. 

15. Seine. 

16. Somme. 

17. Scheldt. 

18. Maese. 

19. Rhine. 

20. Weser. 

21. Elbe. 

22. Oder. 



The Viatula, the Dwina at Riga, and the Dwina at Archangel. 



END. 



QUESTIONS 



FOR THS 



EXAMINATION OF SCHOLARS 



iw 



TYTLER'S ELEMENTS 



ffissfsiusL sesstosi; 



BY AN EXPERIENCED TEACHER 



CONCORD, N. H. 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN F. BROWN 

1837. 



DISTRICT OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE, to wit 

District Clerk's office 

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the fourth day of September, A. D. 
1,823, and in the forty-eighth year of the Independence of the United 
States of America, ISAAC HILL, of the said District, hath deposited in 
this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, m 
tlie words following, to wit •■ — 

« Elements of Goneral History, ancient and modern. By Alexander 
Fraser Tytler, F. R. S E. Professor of History in the University of Edin- 
burgh. With a continuation, terminating at the demise of King George 111., 
1,820. By Rev. Edward Nares, D. D. Professor of Modern History m the 
University of Oxford. To which are added, a succinct History ol the Unit- 
ed States '} an improved Table of Chronology; a comparative view of 
Ancient and Modern Geography ; and Questions on each section. Adapted 
for the use of Schools and Academies. By an experienced readier. 

In conformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, 
" An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, 
charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during 
the times therein mentioned;" and also an act, entitled, " An act supple- 
mentary to an act, entitled an act for the encouragement of learning, by 
securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and pro- 
prietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned, and extending 
tiie benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching bistonca 
*nd other prints." WILLIAM CLAGGETT, Ccrk 

of the District of Ncw-Hampshir*. 

* •" C °P y ° f *~tm WILLIAM CLAGGETT, Cleric 



QUESTIONS. 



PART FIRST. 

SECTION 1. 

1. What books afford the earliest authentic history of the agei 

diately following the deluge ? 

2. When were Babylon and Nineveh built ? 

3. By whom were they built ? 

4. Who are said to have raised Assyria to a high degree of splendour ? 

5. What is the condition of the early parts of Egyptian history ? 

6. Who was the first king of Egypt? 

7. How was Egypt divided ? 

SECTION II. 

8. What is the earliest mode of government ? 

9. Of what description were the first monarchies ? 

10. What was the rank of the kings of Scripture ? 

11. What was the character of the first penal laws in human society i 

12. What were the earliest laws formed for the benefit of society ? 

13. What singular usages prevailed among the ancient nations relating 

to matrimony ? 

14. What laws next succeeded in order to those of marriage ? 

15. What were the earliest methods of authenticating contracts ? 

16. What nation used hieroglyphics, and for what purpose were they 

used ? 

17. What were the methods for recording historical facts, and publishing 

them among the ancients ? 

18. What are among the earliest institutions that have existed ? 

19. How was the priesthood anciently exercised ? 

20. Of what are useful arts the offspring ? 

21. Of what are some of the earliest of them ? 

22. What were the first sciences cultivated ? 

SECTION III. 

23. To what nation is most of the knowledge of ancient nations to be 

traced ? 

24. How did that knowledge descend to modern nations ? 

25. What presumption does the country afford of the antiquity of the 

Egyptian empire ? 

26. To what are the inundations of the river Nile owing ? 

27. What was the government of Egypt ? 

28. What was the character of their penal laws ? 

29. What was the manner of conferring funeral rites in Egypt i 

30. What regulation was there concerning the borrowing of money ? 

31. In the knowledge and cultivation of what useful arts and 

were the Egyptians distinguished ? 

32. What samples of their architecture still remain 1 

33. When were the pyramids built ? 

34. For what were they probably built ? 



41 QUESTIONS. 

35. What was the national character of the Egyptians? 

36. What circumstances served to debase them in the opinion 

porary nations ? 

SECTION IV. 

37. By what name were the Phoenicians known in Scripture? 

38. For what are we indebted to them ? 

39. What is said of them in the time of Abraham ? 

40. What is the antiquity of their writings ? 

SECTION V. 

41. To what early nations were the Grecians indebted for their first rudi- 

ments of civilization ? 

42. Who were the ancient inhabitants of Greece ? 

43. What colony settled in the country about the time of Moses ? 

44. Who settled Attica and at what time ? 

45. Who established the court of Areopagus? 

46. Who established the Amphictyonic Council ? 

47. Who introduced into Greece, and at what time, alphabetic writing f 

48. How many letters did the alphabet then contain ? 

49. What was then the mode of writing ? 

SECTION VI. 

50. What is said of the Pelasgi, of Ancient Greece ? 

51. What was a predominant characteristic of the early Greeks? 

52. What were the names of their four solemn Games, as they were 

termed ? 

53. Of What did they consist ? 

54. What good political effects did these games have ? 

SECTION VII. 

55. Who instituted the Eleusinian mysteries ? 

56. What was the nature of these mysteries ? 

57. Who laid the foundation of the grandeur of Attica ? 

58. When and how did he do it ? 

59. What was the object of the Argonautis expedition? 

60. What was the character of the attack and defence in the sieges of 

Thebes and Troy ? 

61. On whose authority rests the detail of the war of Troy ? 

62. What are the principal facts recorded of that war by Homer ? 

63. How were military expeditions then conducted ? 

SECTION VIII. 

64. When did the Greeks begin to colonize ? 

65. Who was elected the first chief magistrate of the Athenian republic ? 

66. What caused the Greeks to seek refuge in other countries by estab- 

lishing colonies ? 

67. What caused Greece to abolish the regal and establish a republican 

government ? 

68. What distinguished civilians arose in Sparta and Athens at this time ? 

SECTION IX. 

69. What period was Lycurgus invested with the power of reforming and 

new-modelling the constitution of his country ? 

70. What was the government of Sparta as new-modelled by Lycurgus ? 

71. To what did he particularly bend his attention? 

72. How didTie divide the territory ? 



QUESTIONa S 

73. What regulation did he make concerning the use of money ? 

74. By whom were the necessary arts practised ? 

75. What was the course of Spartan education? 

76. By what was the general excellence of the institutions of Lycurgue 

impaired ? 

77. How were the slaves treated ? 

78. What was the end of the institutions of Lycurgus ? 

SECTION X. 

79. What was the nature of the change in the Athenian constitution 

when the regal office was abolished ? 

80. What was the tenure by which the Archonship was held ? 

81. Who attempted a reform in the constitution, 624 B. C. ? 

82. When did Solon attain the Archonship ? 

83. What was his character ? 

84. How did he divide the citizens ? 

85. How did he counterbalance the weight of the popular assemblies ' 

86. How did the particular laws of Athens compare with her form of 

government ? 

87. What was the nature of the laws relating to debtors and slaves ? 

88. What was the condition of women at this time in Athens ? 

89. What was one of the most iniquitous and absurd peculiarities of the 

Athenian and some of the other Grecian governments ? 

90. How were the arts viewed in Athens ? 

91. How did the character of the Athenians compare with that of the 

Spartans ? 

92. To whom were the liberties of Athens surrendered, 550 B. C. ? 

93. Who afterwards restored the democracy ? 

SECTION XI. 

94. Under whom did the first empire of the Assyrians terminate ? 

95. What three monarchies arose from its ruins ? 

96. What king of Assyria, led the Jews into captivity, took Jerusalem 

and Tyre, and subdued Egypt? 

97. Who was the successor of Cambyses in the throne of Persia? 

98. What countries did Cyrus annex to his empire ? 

99. What was the government of Persia ? 

100. To whose care was the children and youth of Persia committed fof 

education ? 

101. What was the nature of the laws in Persia ? 

102. What was the religion of Persia ? 

103. What was the sacred book of the Persians called ? 

104. On what is the theology of the Zendavesta founded i 

SECTION XII. 

105. What king of Persia invaded Greece ? 

106. Where was the Persian army defeated? 

107. Who commanded the Greeks in the battle of Marathon ? 

108. What reward did Miltiades receive for his eminent services from the 

Athenians ? 

109. Who were the successors of Miltiades in the war with the Persians ? 

110. Who succeeded Darius in the command of the Persians? 

111. With what force did Xerxes attempt the conquest of Greece ? 

112. Who was Leonidas ? 

113. With what force did Leonidas contend with the vast army of 

Xerxes ? 

114. At what place was it 

115. What was the result 

1* 



6 QUESTIONS. 

J 16. What was the success of Xerxes with his fleet at lea? 

117. Where were the Persians totally defeated on land, by the combined 

army of the Athenians and Lacedaemonians ? 

118. What was the end of Xerxes? 

119 What was the national character of the Greeks at this time ? 

SECTION XIII. 

120. Who governed Athens after the Persian war? 

121. In what manner did he govern it? 

122. What gave rise to the war during the reign of Pericles between 

Athens and Lacedaemon ? 

1 23. On what account was Alcibiades condemned to death for treason ? 

124. By whom did the Lacedaemonians reduce the pjwer of the Athe- 



nians 



125. W r hat eminent philosopher was then in Athens at this time ? 

126. What was particularly disgraceful to the Athenians in regard to 

him ? 

127. What* is the subject of the history written by Xenophon? 

SECTION XIV. 

128. On the decline of Athens and Sparta, what other Grecian Republic 

rose to a high degree of eminence among the contemporary states ? 

129. W T hat led to the war between Thebes and Sparta? 

130. What two distinguished Generals did Thebes employ in conducting 

this war ? 

131. How did this war terminate? 

SECTION XV. 

132. Who at this time attempted to bring the whole of Greece under his 

dominion ? 

133. What caused what was called the Sacred War of this period ? 

134. What distinguished Grecian orator exposed the artful designs of 

PhHip ? 

135. In what battle was the fate of Greece, so that all her states became 

subject to Philip ? 

136. What great enterprise did he attempt ? 

137. Did he complete it ? 

J 38. Why not? .?' 

SECTION XVI. 

139. Who was the successor of Philip ? 

140. At what age did Alexander ascend the throne of Mace don ? 

141. How large was his army at this time ? 

142. What was his first enterprise? 

143. Who was king of Persia at this time ? 

144. With what force did Darius meet Alexander? 
.45. Where did they meet ? 

146. What was the result of the battle of Granicus? 

147. What were the respective losses of the Greeks and Persians in tne 

battle of Issus ? 

148. What opportunity did Alexander have for the display of generosity 

after the battle of Issus ? 
»49. What was the consequence of the battle of Issus ? 

150. What caused Alexander to storm and subject the city of Tyre > 

151. What was the fate of its inhabitants ? 

152. What was disgraceful to Alexander in his cajture of Gaza? 

153. What opened Egypt to Alexander's victorious arms? 

154. What city did he build in his return from EfVj* i 



QUESTIONS. 7 

155. Who met Alexander at Arbela with an army of 700,000 men? 

156. What was the result of the battle at Arbela? 

157. When was Persia conquered by Alexander ? 

158. What project did he attempt after the conquest of Persia? 

159. What prevented his conquest of India ? 

160. What became of Alexander on finding a limit to his victories ? 

SECTION XVII 

161. What wish did Alexander express as to a successor? 

162. What became of his family ? 

163. Which were the most powerful monarchies formed from hie vart 

empires ? 

SECTION XVIII. 

164. What distinguished orator of Greece attempted to arouse his coun- 

trymen, to shake off the yoke of Macedon, on the death of Alexan- 
der? 

165. What empire arose in Europe on the decline of the Macedonian 

power? 

166. How was Greece added to the Roman empire ? 

1 67. When was the conquest of Greece completed ? 

SECTION XIX. 

168. What is said of the nature of the Republican government of Greece ? 

169. What was the condition of the people under them ? 

170. In what periods of the Grecian history are we to look for splendid 

examples of patriotism ? 

171. What is the most remarkable circumstance that strikes us on com- 

paring the latter with the more early periods of the history of the 
Greeks ? 

SECTION XX. 

172. In what description of the arts did the Grecians excel ? 

173. Which of the Fine Arts did they carry to the greatest degree of per- 

fection ? 3*6 

174. In whose reign did the Fine Arts flourish most ? 

175. What were their three orders of architecture ? 

176. What other orders of architecture are there ? 

177. What was the state of sculpture in Greece? 

178. How did the paintings and music of the Grecians compare with 

those of the moderns ? 

SECTION XXI. 

179. How does poetry compare with prose as to antiquity? 

180. When did Homer flourish ? 

181. Who are some of the other principal poets of ancient Greece ? 

182. When was the origin of dramatic composition among the Greeks ? 

SECTION XXII. 

183. What eminent historians of Greece were contemporaries? 

184. When did they flourish ? 

185. Who were some of the latter distinguished historians of Greece ? 
186* What is said of Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men? 

SECTION XXIII. 
187. What was the most ancient school of philosophy in Greece ? 



8 QUESTIONS. 

188. Who founded the Italian sect of philosophers in Greece f 

189. When did Socrates flourish ? 

190. Who founded the Academic sect? 

191. Who founded the Peripatetic sect? 

192. Who are some of the other Greek philosophers ? 

193. What is the effect of the Greek philosophy on morality and the prog 

ress of useful knowledge ? 

SECTION XXIV. 

194. After the conquest of Greece what Power became an object of par- 

ticular importance ? 

195. What was the character of the first inhabitants of Italy? 

196. Who were they? 

197. What is the opinion of Dionysius concerning the origin of Rome? 

198. What is the vulgar account of the origin of the city built by Rom- 

ulus ? 

199. At what time was it founded ? 

200. Who were the most formidable enemies of the early Romans ? 

201. Who was the second king of Rome ? 

202. Who added 100 Plebeians to the Roman Senate ? 

203. Who removed the poorer citizens from all share in the government of 

Rome ? 

204. What became of Servius Tullius ? 

205. Who succeeded him on the throne ? 

206. What caused the expulsion of Tarquinius ? 

207. What was the first retrenchment in the power of the Roman Sen- 

ate? 

208. What use did the early Romans make of their victories ? 

209. How long did the regal government of Rome continue ? 

210. How many kings were there ? 

211. What is said of the wars in which Rome was almost continually en- 

gaged ? 

SECTION XXV. 

212. What government succeeded the regal one in Rome ? 

213. Who were the two first consuls ? 

214. What law is mentioned that was made under the direction of Vale- 



rius 



215. What gave rise to the office of Dictator ? 

216. What was the power of the Dictator ? 

217. What gave rise to the office of Tribune ; and what were the powers 

of that office ? 

SECTION XXVI. 

218. What effect had the office of Tribune on the powers of the Senate 1 

219. Under what circumstances was Valero made Tribune ? 

220. When did the Roman constitution become a complete democracy f 

SECTION XXVII. 

221. For what purpose were the Decemviri chosen ? . „. 

222. What were the laws called, which they framed ? 

223. At what time were they made ? 

224. With what powers were the Decemviri invested ? 

225. Who was at the head of the Decemvirate ? 

226. What caused the abolition of this office ? 
227 How long did it exist ? 



QUESTIONS. 9 

SECTION XXVIII. 
128. What two barriers separated the patricians and plebeians ? 

229. What two offices were created, 437 B. C. ? 

230. What successful expedient did the senate adopt for filling the Ro* 

man armies ? 

231. What city was taken by Camillus ? 

232. At what period and after how long- a siege ? 

233. To what event do the Roman writers attribute the loss of all the rec- 

ords and monuments of their early history ? 

234. What is there singular in regard to most of the revolutions in 

Rome ? 

SECTION XXIX. 

235. How long after the foundation of their city did Rome become mistress 

of all It?»\y ? 

236. What was the policy observed by the Romans with respect to the 

nations they had conquered ? 

237. What gave rise to the Punic wars ? 

SECTION XXX. 

238. By whom and when was Carthage founded ? 

239. How many smaller cities were under the dominion of Carthage at 

the time of the Punic wars ? 

240. What was the form of government ? 

241. To what was the wealth and splendour of Carthage owing ? 

SECTION XXXI. 

242. Who founded Syracuse ? 

243. What was the government of it ? 

SECTION XXXII. 

244. Where did the war between Rome and Carthage commence ? 

245. What Roman consul was taken by the Carthaginians in the first 

Punic war ? 

246. What patriotic act did Regulus perform when a prisoner to the 

Carthaginians ? 

247. How did the first Punic war terminate ? 

248. How long did the peace between Rome and Carthage continue ? 

249. How did the second Punic war begin ? 

250. Who was the Carthaginian general in this war ? 

251. How did Hannibal conduct this war ? 

252. Where did the Romans meet with complete defeat ? 

253. How many were slain in the battle of Cana ? 

254. What is supposed would have been the consequence had Hannibal 

improved this victory ? 

255. In what way did the Romans compel the Carthaginians to sue for 

peace ? 

256. What Roman general carried war to the gates of Carthage ? 

257. At what time did the second Punic war close ? 

258. When did the third commence ? 

259. What was the issue of this war ? 

260. When was Carthage destroyed ? 

261. What other success attended the Romans this year? 

SECTION XXXIII. 

262 What two persons, at this time, undertook to reform the corruption* 
of the Romans ? 



10 QUESTIONS. 

263. What circumstances attending the war of Jugurtha gave decisive 

proof of the corruption of the Roman manners ? 

264. What became of Jugurtha ? 

265. Between what two rivals did a civil war now break out in Rome ? 

266. What became of Marius ? 

267. To what office was Sylla afterwards elected ? 

268. What magnanimous act characterized the latter part of his life ? 

269. Between whom was the civil war revived after the death of Sylla ? 

270. What conspiracy, at this time, threatened the destruction oi 

Rome ? 

271. By whosss provident zeal and patriotism was it extinguished ? 

272. What distinguished individual now rose into notice ? 

273. Under what circumstances was the first Triumvirate formed ? 

274. What Roman general invaded and conquered Britain, 54 B. C. 

275. Who procured the banishment of Cicero ? 

276. Who effected his recall from exile ? 

277. What dissolved the Triumvirate ? 

SECTION XXXIV. 

278. What proposition was made at this time by Caesar ? 

279. Did Pompey accede to it ? 

280. Did war ensue between them ? 

281. What decree did the senate pronounce ? 

282. Where was a decisive battle fought ? 

283. What became of Pompey ? 

284. In what war was the famous library of Alexandria burnt ? 

285. What was the character of Caesar's administration of the govern- 

ment, after the complete overthrow of Pompey's partisans ? 
£86. To what offices was he appointed ? 

287. Whatwa3 the end of Caesar ? 

288. Under what circumstances was the second Triumvirate formed. 

289. For what did Antony summon Cleopatra to appear before him ? 

290. What caused the overthrow of Antony ? 

291. What became of him? 

292. What induced Cleopatra to destroy herself? 

SECTION XXXV. 

293. What power was given to every head of a family ? 

294. What were reckoned the highest points of female merit ? 

295. What qualifications contributed most to elevate persons to the high* 

est offices and dignities of the state ? 

SECTION XXXVI. 

296. What was the state of literature in the early ages of the Roman re- 

public ? 
297 Who were the principal Roman historians ? 

298. Who were the principal Roman poets ? 

SECTION XXXVII. 

299. Was much attention paid to the study of philosophy in the early 

periods of Rome ? 
800. At what time *ttd philosophy become an object of attention with the 

Romans ? 
S01. Who first diffused a taste for tb.3 study of philosophy among the 

Romans ? 
802. Who may be reckoned their most eminent philosopher ? 



QUESTIONS. H 

SECTION XXXVIII. 

503. "What were some of the most distinguishing traits of character in the 

early Romans ? 
3C4. What contribute! chiefly to their change of character and man* 

ners ? 

305. What were some of the amusements of the Romans ? 

SECTION XXXIX. 

306. To what may be ascribed the extensive conquests of the Romans ? 
307 What was the number of soldiers in a Roman legion ? 

308. When is it supposed that the tactic of the Romans was at its heigh 1 

of excellence ? 

309. By whom was the art of entrenchment carried to great perfection ? 

310. When was the naval military art first known among the Romans ? 

SECTION XL. 

311. When did the most material change for the worse in the national 

character of the Romans take place ? 

312. What were the morals of the Romans in the last ages of the com- 

monwealth ? 
313 From what circumstances did Roman virtue so rapidly decline ? 

314. To what did the Roman republic owe its dissolution ? 

SECTION XLL 

315. What battle decided the fate of the commonwealth ana made Octa- 

vius master of Rome ? 

316. By what name was he now called ? 

317. What event said to be productive of universal joy distinguished his 

reign ? 

318. What methods did he practice to keep himself in the favour of ttoi 

people ? 

319. When did Augustus die and at what age ? 

320. How long did he reign ? 

321. Who succeeded him ? 

322. What was the character of Tiberius ? 

323. In what manner was he related to Augustus ? 

324. What was the end of Tiberius? 

325. In what year of his reign was Jesus Christ cruoined ? 

326. Who was the successor of Tiberius ? 

327. What was his character ? 

328. What became of him ? 

329. Who succeeded Caligula ? 

SECTION XLII 

330. By what acts of violence was the reign of Nero, the successor of Clan- 

dius, characterised ? 

331. Who were the three next Roman emperors? 

332. Under which of the emperors was Jerusalem taken ? 

333. Who succeeded Vespasian ? 

334. What was the character of Ti-fcus ? 

335. How was it suspected Titus came to his death ? 

336. What three emperors next in order succeeded Domitian ? 

337. What was the character of Trajan and Adrian ? 

SECTION XLIII. 

338. For what length of time did the Antonines reign ? 

339. What was their character ? 



12 QUESTIONS 

340. What length of time was there from the death of the Antonines ta 

the accession of Diocletian ? 

341. What was the character of the emperors that reigned in this period? 

342. What change in the government did Diocletian introduce ? 

343. Under whom was the seat of the Roman empire removed and when ? 

344. What was his religion ? 

SECTION XLIV. 

345. What was the general character of the government of Rome under 
Constantine f 

346. In what way did he injure the army ? 

347. What was the policy pursued by the emperor Julian towards Chris- 

tianity ? 

348. Who were the three emperors that succeeded in order to Julian ? 

SECTION XLV. 

349. In whose reign did Christianity become the established religion of the 
Roman empire ? 

350. Why were the Romans less tolerant towards the Christian than they 

were towards the different pagan religions of other nations? 

351. When were the books of the New Testament collected into a vol- 



ume 



352. When was the Old Testament translated into Greek from the origi 

nal Hebrew ? 

353. In what way did Christianity suffer in the third century ? 

354. Did Christianity become more or less pure as it received favo'j* 

from the civil powers ? 

SECTION XLVI. 

455. When and by whom was the city of Rome sacked and plundered ? 

356. What is the length of time from the building of Rome to the extinc- 

tion of the empire ? 

357. What may be considered the ultimate cause of the ruin of the Ro- 

man Empire ? 

358. Who was die last emperor of Rome i 

359. When was he compelled to resign the throne ? 

360. By whom was he compelled to d-o it ? 

SECTION XLVII. 

361. From what country is it supposed that the Goths were originally de- 

rived ? 

362. What was the character of the ancient Scythians ? 

363. Of what nation were the Germans a branch? 

364. What effect had the religion of the Goths upon them, as a warlike 

people ? 

SECTION XLVIII. 

365. Were the Roman laws retained after Italy was conquered by the 

Goths ? 

366. What character does Tytler give the conquerors cf Italy? 

367 What government did the Goths establish in Italy after its conquest I 

368 Was it elective or hereditary ? 

SECTION XLIX. 

36*} What are the most ancient books of history in existence ? 
370 "VTio are some of the earliest writers of profane history whow fv- k# 
*t Jtill extant 



QUESTIONS. Ig 

371 . What modern histories of Greece and Rome are mott worthy of pe- 

rusal to the person who has attended to original works named ? 

372. What may be considered the greatest magazine of historical knowl- 

edge ever collected ? 

373. What are esteemed the lights of history ? 



PART SECOND. 
MODERN HISTORY. 

SECTION I. 

374. At what sera is the commencement of profane history dated ? 

375. What new and powerful dominion arose in the latter part of the sixth 

century ? 

376. To whom do the Arabians trace their descent? 

377. When and where was Mahomet born ? 

378. What was his descent and education ? 

379. What is the sacred book of the Mahometan religion called ? 

380. By whom and under what circumstances was it written ? 

381. What are the nature and substance of Mahometan religion ? 

382. What caused the banishment of Mahomet from Mecca ? 

383. What is his flight called ? 

384. When did it take place ? 

385. Did the Mahometan religion have a rapid increase ? 

386. What was the title of the head of this empire ? 

SECTION II. 

387. Who were the Franks ? 

388. From what did they receive this name ? 

389. Under whom and what circumstances were the Franks converted U 

Christianity ? 

390. Who delivered France from the ravages of the Saracens? 

391. At what time did this take place ? 

392. With whom and under what circumstances commenced the second 

race of kings in France ? 

393. Who succeeded Pepin in the sovereignty of France ? 

SECTION III. 

394. How was the power of the government divided and exercised in the 

early parts of the French monarchy ? 

395. What was the religious character of the ancient Germans? 

S96. What new system of policy arose at this time among the united 
Germans and Franks, which extended itself over most nations of 
Europe ? 

397. What is to be understood by the Feudal System ? 

398. What effect had the Feudal System on the power of the sovereign . 

399. By what name is the second race of French kings called ? 

SECTION rv. 

400. How came Charlemagne into possession of the undivided sovereignity 

of France ? 

401. What was his private character ? 

402. When did he die ? 

403. Who was his successor? 2 



M QUESTIONS 

SECTION V. 

404. What is said of Charlemagne in relation to commerce * 

405. How did he view literature J 

406. What style of architecture was successfully studied and cultivated 

in that age ? 
107. What sanguinary and most iniquitous custom of the present time 
may be traced to the age of Charlemagne? 

SECTION VI. 

408. What great heresies existed in the Christian church about this 

time? 

409. By whom and when was the Arian heresy condemned ? 

410. What was a source of the most obstinate controversy in those ages ? 

411. What gave rise to penances and other religious voluntary suffering' 

412. What effect had the conquests of Charlemagne on Christianity ? 

SECTION VII. 

413. Who was the immediate successor of Charlemagne ? 

414. Did his empire remain entire under his successors ? 

415. What was the character of his successors ? 

SECTION VIII. 

416. What was the condition of the Eastern empire during the eighth and 

ninth centuries ? 

417. What was the character of the emperors ? 

418. What religious dispute prevailed at this time ? 

SECTION IX. 

419. Under whom did the Pope begin to acquire temporal power? 

420. What is said of the religious character of the temporal princes of this 

period ? 

421. What check was there, at this time, to the increasing power of the 

church of Rome ? 

422. What is the character of the clergy of this period ? 

SECTION X. 

423. By whom was the empire of Morocco founded ? 

424. When did the Saracens overrun and conquer Spain ? 

425. Was the Mahometan religion extensively professed? 

426. What prevented the Saracens from raising an extensive empire? 

SECTION XI. 

427. What had become the condition of the empire founded by Charle 

magne, in the tenth and eleventh centuries ? 

428. How were the emperors at this time elected ? 

429. Who were some of the most distinguished monarchs of Germany in 

the middle ages ? 

430. Were there frequent disputes between the Pop&s of Rome and Ger 

man emperors ? 

SECTION XII. 

431. From whom is it probable the British isles derived their first inhabi- 

tants ? 

432. What was the condition of the country when invaded by the Ro» 

mans? 
•H3. When did Julius Caesar enter Britain 7 



QUESTIONS. 18 

434. When did a complete reduction of the island take place, and put it 

under the Roman power ? 

435. When did the Romans abandon the country ? 

436. What led the Saxons into Britain ? 

437. How long were the Saxons in conquering the Britons ? 

438. What was the government called, established by the Saxons ? 

439. When aud by whom was the Saxon Heptarchy brought under one 

sovereign ? 

440. What piratical people for a long period subsequent to this, desolated 

the coasts of Britain ? 

441. What relationship was there between Alfred the Great and Egbert? 

442. What is the character of Alfred ? 

443. When did he die ? 

444. Who were the immediate successors of Alfred ? 

445. What people invaded and obtained the government of England sub- 

sequent to the time of Alfred ? 
446 When was William duke of Normandy put in possession of the throne 
of England? 

SECTION XIII. 

447. What was the character of the Anglo-Saxon government ? 

448. How many ranks of people were there ? 

449. How did the Anglo-Saxons compare with the Normans in point ot 

civilization ? 

SECTION XIV. 

450. Who was elected to the throne of France, A. D. 987? 

451. What was the prevailing passion among the nations of Europe dur- 

ing the tenth and eleventh centuries ? 

452. What was the state of the Northern powers of Europe in point of civ- 

ilization, at this time ? 

453. What was a subject of dispute between the Popes and the Emperors * 

SECTION XV. 

45<*. What was the consequence of the battle of Hastings ? 

455. What was the end of William the conqueror ? 

456. What important law did he introduce into England ? 

457. Which part of his subjects were treated with most favour ? 

458. Who were some of the immediate successors of William the conquer 

or? 

459. Who effected the conquest of Ireland ? 

460. What clouded the latter part of the reign of Henry II. ? 

461. What was the character of this monarch ? 

462. Who succeeded him on the throne ? 

463. How came Richard I. to be imprisoned in Germany ? 

464. Under what sovereign was the Mfegna Charta prodmced ? 

SECTION XVI. 

465. What two factions were there in Italy in the thirteenth century ? 

466. What occasioned them ? 

467. What was the political state of Europe at this time ? 

SECTION XVII. 

468. Who was the first promoter of the Crusades ? 

469. What was the object of the Crusades ? 

470. What was the number of Peter's army, and when did he 

his crusade to the Holy Land ? 



W QUESTIONS. 

471. What became of this army ? 

472. When was a second crusade undertaken and how many engaged is 

473. What was the fate of this expedition? 

474. Who headed the third crusade ? 

475. When was the fourth fitted out ? 

476. What particular success attended one, and what was its issue ? 

477. Who undertook the last crusade into the East ? 

478. What became of Lewis IX. ? 

479. How many, is it supposed, of the persons who engaged in the cro 

sades, perished ? 

480. What benefit resulted from the crusades ? 

SECTION XVIII. 

481. How was the profession of arms esteemed among the Germans? 

482. What is said to have been characteristic of the Gothic manners ? 

483. When did chivalry attain its perfection ? 

484. What writings accompanied the adventures of chivalry ? 

485. Are works of fiction capable of producing good moral effects ? 

SECTION XIX. 

486. When did the crusaders take Constantinople ? 

487. How long did the French emperors govern it ? 

488. When may the rise of the house of Austria be dated ? 

489. How did the states of Italy compare at this time with amt4 the 

other countries of Europe ? 

490. What severe and bloody measure was adopted in relation t# the 

Knights Templars ? 

SECTION XX. 

491. When did Switzerland become independent ? 

492. By what name was it then called ? 

493. To what government had it been subject ? 

494. What was the number of battles fought before it became indle^ ce- 

dent? 

SECTION XXI. 

495. What prince imposed a tribute on all the Italian states ? 

496. In whose time was the Popedom removed to Avignon ? 

497. How long did it remain there ? 

498. What act distinguished the reign of Charles IV. ? 

499. Who summoned the council of Constance, 1414 ? 

500. What martyrdoms were the consequence of this council ? 

501. By whom was the wealth of the Germanic states possessed? 

SECTION XXII. 

502. What character is given of Henry III. ? 

503. By whom was he made a prisoner ? 

504. Who succeeded Henry III. on the throne of England? 

505. When and by whom was Wales conquered ? 

SECTION XXIII. 

506. What is the state of the Scottish history before the time of Malcolm 



«£"#» 



were the two next succeeding kings of Scotland ? 

508. Who became competitors to the crown, 1285. 

509. How was the dispute decided ? 



QUESTIONS. 17 

&10. What distinguished warrior arose, at this time, to assert the liberties 
of his country ? 

511. What became of Wallace? 

512. Who finally succeeded in delivering Scotland from the English and 

was crowned sovereign of it, 1306 ? 

SECTION XXIV. 

513. What statute was passed by Edward I. which related to taxes and 

imposts ? 

514. How many times in his reign is he said to have ratified the Magna 

Charta ? 
615. With how large an army did he invade Scotland? 

516. With what force did Bruce meet him? 

517. Who dethroned Edward II. and under what circumstances ? 

518. In what manner did Edward III. revenge the murder of his father? 

519. On what did he found his claim to the throne of France ? 

520. When are the English said for the first time to have used artillery in 

battle ? 

521. What king of France was carried captive to England, and by whom ? 

522. What became of the captive king of France ? 

523. Who succeeded John in France and Edward III. in England ? 

SECTION XXV. 

524. What became of Richard II. and who succeeded him ? 

£25. What was the origin of the quarrels between the houses of Lanca* 
ter and York ? 

526. What induced Henry V. to invade France ? 

527. What was the result of this expedition? 

528. On what terms did Henry V. receive a right to the throne of France 

during the life of Charles VI. ? 

529. By what aid was Charles VII. enabled to secure the throne of France 

to himself? 

530. What became of the Maid of Orleans ? 

531. What was the state of society in Europe at this period? 

532. What circumstances show that it was in a low state ? 

SECTION XXVI. 

533. At what time did the Turks cross over into Europe ? 

534. What Asiatic conqueror arose in the 14th century, who for a time 

checked the Turks in their career of conquest and oppression ? 

535. What effect did the death of Tamerlane have on the Turks ? 

536. What prince subjected Constantinople to the power of the Turks ? 

537. When did this take place, and how long had the eastern empire 

then subsisted ? 

538. Did this terminate the empire of the East, as it was termed ? 

SECTION XXVII. 

539. What is the government of Turkey ? 

540. What limits and restraints are there upon a Turkish Sultan ? 

541. What is the character of the people ? 

542. With what officer are the principal functions of the government en* 

trusted ? 

543. How are the revenues of the government obtained? 

SECTION XXVIII. 
644. What greatly increased the power of the French crown in the IStk 
century ? 2 * 



18 QUESTIONS 

■ 

545. What was the character of Lewis XI. ? 

546. Who were the two immediate successors of Lewis XL, on the throat 

of France ? 

547. In what foreign enterprise did Charles VIII. of France engage? 

SECTION XXIX. 

548. What circumstance united the kingdoms of Arragon and Castile 

under the same sovereigns ? 

549. What institutions were formed in this period for the discovery and 

punishment of crimes ? 

550. When did Ferdinand take the title, king of Spain ? 

551. How long time did the dominion of the Moors continue in Spain? 

552. On what account and when did Ferdinand expel the Jews from 

Spain ? 

553. How numerous were they ? 

554. What memorable discovery was made in this reign ? 

SECTION XXX. 

655. What was the character of pope Alexander VI. ? 

556. What became of him ? 

557. Who conspired to deprive Lewis XII. of Navarre ? 

558. When did he die ? 

SECTION XXXI. 

559. How did the partisans of York and Lancaster distinguish themselves 

from each other ? 

560. Which party triumphed? 

561. How many of the Lancastrians were slain in the battle near Touton ? 

562. To whom was Edward IV. in the first instance indebted for hit 

throne ? 

563. What caused Warwick to turn against Edward ? 

564. What epithet was given to Warwick ? 

565. Who was the queen of Henry VI. and what is said of her character? 

566. What of Henry VI. — of his queen Margaret — and of the Prince, 

their son ? 
5C7. Who was Richard III ? 

568. How did he come to the throne ? 

569. What became of him ? 

570. What became of Edward V. ? 

571. How were the Houses of York and Lancaster united, which put ft 

period to the civil wars between them ? 

572. What is said of the government of Henry VII. ? 

SECTION XXXII. 

573. What was the state of the feudal system in Scotland ? 

574. What was a constant policy of the Scottish kings ? 

575. What Scottish king was prisoner in London in company with John, 

king of France ? 

576. How long was he held in captivity there ? 

577. How lcng was James I. held m captivity by the English ? 

578. What advantage did he derive from this captivity ? 

579. To what end did the five Jameses come ? 

580. With what English sovereign was James V contemporary, and en- 

gaged in war ? 

SECTION XXXIII. 

581. What was the constant policy of the Scottish kings 



QUESTIONS 19 

*82. What rendered this policy necessary ? 

b83. In whom resided the legislative power ? 

684- Of what did the revenue of the sovereign consist? 

SECTION XXXIV. 

585. Who were the first restorers of learning in Europe ? 

586. What sovereigns in this age encouraged the revival of learning in 

Europe ? 

587. What distinguished genius appeared in the middle of the thirteenth 

century ? 

588. In what did the genius of Bacon discover itself? 

589. What led to a discovery of many of the ancient authors, during the 

fifteenth century ? 

590. What contributed most to the dissemination of knowledge at thii 

period ? 

591. To what is to be traced modern dramatic composition ? 

SECTION XXXV. 

592. What was the boldest naval enterprise of the ancients 1 

593. What parts of Europe were unknown to the ancients? 

594. To what sea was the commerce of the ancients mostly oonfined ? 

595. What cities of modern Europe first became commercial ? 

596. When and where was first established a national bank ? 

597. What weie the Italian merchants called in the middle ages? 

598. What gi.ve rise to bills of Exchange ? 

599. W r hen did commerce extend itself to the north of Europe ? 

600. For what purpose was the League of the Hanse towns formed ? 

601. When did the woollen manufactures of England become important? 

602. What English sovereigns in these ages particularly encouraged com- 

merce and the useful arts ? 

SECTION XXXVI. 

603. When was the mariner's compass first used ? 

604. What nation became particularly distinguished in the fifteenth cen- 

tury for naval enterprise ? 

605. When and by whom was the Cape of Good Hope doubled ? 

606. How extensive did the Portuguese possessions in India become at 

this time ? " ' 

607. What effect had these discoveries on the commerce of Europe ? 

608. Who made repeated attempts to destroy the trade of the Portuguese? 

609. What besides the Portuguese discoveries produced a spirit of suc- 

cessful enterprise in England ? # 

610. W T hat has been the increase of population in Britain since the reign 

of Elizabeth? 

611. What proportion of the population is supposed to be employed in 

manufactures and commerce ? ... 

612. How does it appear that there has been a great increase ot national 

wealth in Britain ? 

SECTION XXXVII. 

613. Who were the parents of Charles V. ? 

614. When did he come to the throne of Spain? 

615. Who was the competitor of Charles V. for the throne of Austria oa 

the death of Maximilian ? 

616. Who was king of England at this time ? 

617. How did the war terminate between Charles and Francis ? 

618. With whom did Henry VIII. take part on the renewal of the war? 

619. What induced Charles to conclude a treaty with Francis, in 1544 



20 QUESTIONS. 

620. When and by whom was the order of Jesuit* founded' 

621. What was the principle of the order ? 

622. What gave Charles perpetual disquiet in Germany? 

623. At what age and where did he resign his dominions ? 

SECTION XXXVIII. 

624. What was the condition of the Germanic empire previous to the reiga 

of Maximilian 1.? 

625. What emperor acquired the greatest power in Germany ? 

SECTION XXXIX. 

626. What important events distinguished the age of Charles V. ? 

627. Who was a leading character in producing the Reformation ? 

628. Who was Roman Pontiff at this time ? 

629. What practice of the Romish church did Luther first attack ? 

630. What procured Henry VIII. the title of Defender of the faith ? 

631. What distinguished reformer arose in Switzerland? 

632. What sovereign at this time was upon the thrones of Sweden, Den- 

mark, and Norway ? 

633. Who was Gustavus Vasa ? 

634. What act of Leo X and of Christiern II. contributed to the reforma 

tion in the north ? 

635. From what circumstance did the Lutherans derive the name of Prot 

estants ? 

636. Who became a distinguished convert to the doctrines of the refor- 

mation in Geneva ? 

637. What is said of the character of Calvin ? 

SECTION XL. 

reformer arose in 
tury i 

639. In what way had Wlckliffe prepared the minds of the people of Eng- 
land for the reformation ? 

840. Who was the immediate cause of it ? 

641. What led Henry VIII. to declare himself head of the church in Eng- 

land ? 

642. When did he die, and by whom was he succeeded ? 

643. What checked the progress of reformation in England, in the year 

1553 ? 

644. How many Protestants suffered martyrdom during the reign of Mary, 

in England ? 

645. In whose reign did the Protestant religion become established accord- 

ing to its present form in England ? 

SECTION XLI. 

646. Who discovered America? 

647. To whom did he apply in vain for aid in making discoveries ? 

648. Who finally furnished him for the voyage? 

649. How long after Columbus left the Canaries, before he discovered 

land ? 

650. In which of his voyages did he discover the continent of America ? 

651. From whom was the name of America received ? 

652 How did the Spaniards treat the inhabitants of the newly discovered 

countries ? 
653. When and by whom was the continent of America explored ? 

654 How long had the Mexican empire been founded at this time ? 

655 Who was the sovereign of it ? 






QUESTIONS. fj 

656. What was the result of the expedition against the Mexicans? 

657. Who and with what success attempted to supersede Cortez? 

658. What became of Montezuma ? 

659. Who was his successor, and what became of him ? 

660. When and by whom was an expedition undertaken against Peru ? 
66 J. What are some of the most important circumstances that attended 

this expedition ? 

662. What became of D' Almagro and Pizarro ? 

663. What constituted the principal value of the American Spanish pos- 

sessions ? 

SECTION XLII. 

664. What effect had the success of the Spaniards on the other nations ol 

Europe ? 

665. Who first settled Brazil, Florida, and Canada ? 

666. From what did England derive her right to her American settle- 

ments ? 

667. Who first planted an English colony in America ? 

668. How do those parts of America at first settled by British colonists 

compare in natural richness with the Spanish possessions ? 

SECTION XLIII. 

669. What was the state of the fine arts in Europe in the time of Leo X. ? 

670. What was their progress ? 

671. In what arts did the Italians excel ? 

672. Who were some of the most distinguished Italian painters ? 

673. Who were some of the most distinguished Italian sculptors ? 

674. When is the invention of engraving on copper dated ? 

SECTION XLIV. 

675. What is the character of the Turks in the fifteenth century ? 

676. From whom did the Turks take the island of Rhodes ? 

677. From what ancient nation are derived the principles of maritime ju- 

risprudence existing among modern nations ? 

678. What conquests did the Turks make in the sixteenth century ? 

SECTION XLV. 

679. What occasioned a revolution in Persia in the latter part of the fif- 

teenth century ? 

680. What is the government of Persia ? 

681. From what country have proceeded the conquerors who occasioned 

the principal revolutions of Asia ? 

682. What singular phenomenon does the kingdom of Thibet exhibit ? 

SECTION XLVI. 

683. Who has furnished the earliest accounts of India ? 

684. How do those accounts compare with the present condition of the 

Hindoos ? 

685. When did the Mahometans begin an establishment in India? 

686. What was the condition of the Mogul empire in the beginning of the 

eighteenth century ? 

687. Who conquered and obtained possession of the Mogul empire about 

the middle of the eighteenth century ? 

SECTION XLVII. 
668. How have the remains of the ancient knowledge of the Hindoos beet 
preserved ? 






72 QUESTIONS. 

689. How has the boily of Hindoo people been divided ? 

690. What inference is to be drawn from this classification of the Hindoos, 

as to their early civilization ? 

691. What was the civil policy of the Hindoos in the time of Alexander 

the great ? 

692. What is the antiquity of some Hindoo compositions lately trans- 

lated ? 

693. What is the antiquity of some numerical tables lately obtained from 

the Bramins by M. Gentil ? 

694. What do the writings of the Hindoo priests demonstrate ? 

695. What is the religion of India generally ? 

SECTION XLVIII. 

696. What is said of the laws and system of government in China? 

697. When did the Tartars establish themselves permanently in the soy- 

ereignty of China ? 

698. When and by whom was the empire of Japan discovered ? 

699. Who carried on a beneficial trade with the people of Japan ? 

700. What caused this trade to be broken off ? 

701. Why is it that the Dutch are still allowed to trade with the Japa 

nese ? 

SECTION XLIX. 

702. To whom does Sir William Jones trace the origin of the Chinese ? 

703. What is the government of China ? 

704. How are honours bestowed in China ? 

705. What is the state of the sciences in China at this time ? 

706. What arts in China are carried to great perfection ? 

707. What are the morals of the Chinese ? 

708. What Chinese writer is said to have produced a good system of mo- 

rality ? 

709. What ia the religion of the emperor and the higher mandarins ? 

SECTION L. 

710. What was the opinion of Mr. Bailly concerning the arts and sciences 

among the nations of the east ? 

711. How long have they been stationary with the Chinese? 

712. At how early a period are the Chaldeans represented to have been 

an enlightened people ? 

713. Is the opinion of Mr. Bailly well founded ? 

SECTION LI. 

714. Who took Calais from the English for the French ? 

715. How long had it been in possession of the English? 

716. What was the character of Philip II. ? 

717. The government did he confer on the Prince of Orange? 

718. For what purpose did he establish the Inquisition in those provinces * 

719. What led to the establishment of the republic of the seven united 

provinces ? 

720. What is the chief magistrate called ? 

721. What became of the Prince of Orange ? 

722. Who aided this republic in obtaining independence ? 

SECTION LII. 

723. What was the government of the seven united provinces ? 

724. What important evil is there in the constitution of the government I 

725. What was the authority of the chief magistrate ? 



QUESTIONS. 38 

716. Who almost annihilated the republic ? 

727. When wai the Stadtholdership made hereditary ? 

SECTION LIII. 

728. How was the loss of the Netherlands compensated to Philip II. ? 

729. When did he take possession of Portugal ? 

730. What naval enterprise engaged the attention of Philip ? 

731. What was the result of it? 

732. What is the character of Philip ? 

SECTION LIV. 

733. What accelerated the progress of reformation in France ? 

734. What- two parties were engaged in a civil war in the latter part •! 

the sixteenth century ? 

735. When was the massacre of St. Bartholomew ? 

736. What was the character of Charles IX. of France ? 

737. Who were his two immediate successors ? 

738. What became of them ? 

739. What great project was Henry IV. meditating, when assassinated ? 

SECTION LV. 

740. When did Elizabeth come to the throne of England ? 
7J41. What was the state of the kingdom during her reign ? 

742. What fixed a stain on Elizabeth's character ? 

743. Under what pretence did Mary of Scots assume the arms and title of 

queen of England ? 

744. What form of religion became established in Scotland, in the reign of 

Elizabeth ? 

745. Who was a distinguished reformer in Scotland ? 

746. Who were the two husbands of Mary ? 

747. How came Mary in the hands of Elizabeth ? 

748. Under what pretence was Mary condemned and executed ? 

749. How long was she a captive in England * 

750. At what age and when did Elizabeth die ? 

SECTION LVI. 

751. Who succeeded Elizabeth on the throne of England? 

752. What rendered James unpopular with his subjects ? 

753. What was the object of the gunpowder treason ? 

754. By whom was the conspiracy formed ? 

755. What was a favourite object with James ? 

756. Who was his successor ? 

757. What were some of the principal subjects of dispute between Charlei 

and his parliaments ? 

758. What caused the Scots to rebel and take up arms against the govern- 

ment of Charles? 

759. What two distinguished individuals at this time were impeached by 

the commons and beheaded ? 

760. What important occurrence was there at this time in Ireland ? 

761. When the civil war commenced, who were on the side of the king;, 

and who on that of the parliament ? 

762. Who directed the measures of the army of parliament ? 

763. In what way was Cromwell able to procure the death of Charles ? 

764. When was he beheaded ? 

765. How far were the proceedings of the commons justifiable? 



w QUESTIONS. 

SECTION LVII. 
766. What part did the parliament of Scotland *^ ^5^ * ^f* ? 
76?! On what conditions Charles II. proclaimed king of Scotland 

768. Who were the Covenanters of Scotland ? Mmw u > 

769. What became of Charles II. when overcome by Cromwell. 

770. What was the title of Cromwell ? 

771. What was the character of his government . 

772 At what a<*e did he die, and who was his successor? 

m Whlt h wa a s°the parliament called that put to deathkmg paries? 

774. Under what circumstances and when was Charles 11. restored. 

SECTION LVIII. 

77«i What was the character of Charles II. ? 

776. Wheniwere the epithets of Whig and Tory first known, and how 

were they applied? 
777 Who was the successor of Charles 11. : 

778. What made him unpopular with his subjects . 

779. By what means was Charles removed from the throne . 
780*. On whom was the crown then settled ? 

781. What became of James ? 

SECTION LIX. 

782. To what period may the rudiments of the English constitution to 

traced' 1 
783 In whose reign was instituted the trial by jury . 
784* In whose reign did the Magna Charta originate ? 
785 n whose reig^i was the act of Habeas Corpus passed? 

786. Of what does the parliament of Great Britain consist ? 

787. Of what does the house of lords consist ? 

788. Of what does the house of commons consist f 
789! What is the act of Habeas Corpus ? 

SECTION LX. 

790 How are the pecuniary supplies of the sovereign obtained ? 
791. When did the English national debt arise ? 
792*. What constitutes the Sinking Fund ? 

793. Is it probable the debt will ever become extinct? 

SECTION LXI. 

794. To what minister was France indebted for much of her good succesi 

in the reign of Lewis XIII. ? 

Ill' ^^tt^tX^ot^t^^^U^ 

XIII. ? 
If 7. When did he die ? 

SECTION LXII. 

798. What weak and despicable act did Philip III. commit? 

799. When did Portugal become an independent sovereignty . 

800. Who became her first king? _ 

801. What is said of Spain in the reigns of Philip III. and IV.? 

SECTION LXIII. 

802. What was the condition of Germany when Charles V. abdicated th. 

803. WhaTwas then and for a long period afterwards a subject of conU* 

tion in Germany ? 



QUESTIONS. 16 

604. What peace put a period to this contention? 

805. When did the peace of Westphalia take place ? 

SECTION LXIV. 

806. When did Lewis XIV. come to the throne of France? 

807. At what age? 

808. What led to a civil war in the early part of his reign ? 

809. When did Mazarin die ? 

810. What change took place in the affairs of France at this time ? 

811. What was reckoned one of the weakest and most impolitic measurei 

of Lewis XIV. ? 

812. What was the state of the finances of France in the latter part of 

the reign of Lewis XIV. ? 

813. What character is given of Lewis XIV. ? 

814. At what age and when did he die ? 

SECTION LXV. 

815. What change took place in the government of France, under the 

Capetian race of kings ? 

816. What power arose to limit and check the royal prerogative, in and 

from the reign of Lewis XIII. 

817. What made the powers of parliament a constant subject of dispute ? 

818. In what way was the crown of France to descend? 

819. What was the established religion of France? 

820. What took place in the assembly of the Gallican church, in 1682 ? 

SECTION LXVI. 
321. What two distinguished characters in the north of Europe were 
contemporary with Lewis XIV. ? 

822. When is Russia said to have received Christianity ? 

823. What sovereign first published a code of laws in Russia ? 

824. When was Siberia added to the Russian empire ? 

825. When and how did Peter become master of the Russian empire ? 

826. How was the early part of his life spent ? 

827. What method did he adopt to improve himself in the sciences and 

useful arts ? 

828. When and at what age did Charles XII. come to the throne of Sweden ? 

829. At what age and with what success was his first campaign made ? 

830. What change did he effect in the government of Poland ? 

831. By whom was he defeated? 

832. How many of his awny remained to him after this defeat ? 

833. To what means did Charles then resort to regain his lost power ? 

834. What became of Charles XII. ? 

835. When did Peter the Great die ? 

SECTION LXVII. 

836. Who were the principal philosophers in the seventeenth century ? 

837. For what was Galileo imprisoned ? 

838. What institutions were formed which contributed to the advance- 

ment of science and the arts ? 

839. What work of Newton contains the elements of all philosophy ? 

840. What was Locke's theory concerning the human mind ? 

841. What are some of the most distinguished poetical productions of 

modern times ? 

842. Who are some of the most eminent English Poets ? 

843. Who were distinguished writers in history during the 16th and Hlh 

centuries ? 3 



QUESTIONS. 



APPENDIX 

HISTORY OF THE JEWS. 

SECTION I. 

844. What constitutes the basis of the first historical records ? 
846. How can we account for the fabulous relations of the first histo- 
rians ? 

846. From what period are the details in profane history to be received 

as facts ? 

847. What historical records are the most ancient as well as the most ra- 

tional ? 

848. What historical facts do they contain, not found in other history ? 

SECTION II. 

849. Who were the Israelites ? 

850. Why were they suffered to be subdued by the Romans ? 

851. In what condition do their descendants exist? 

852. What circumstance illustrates the truth and inspiration of the pro- 

phetic writings ? 

SECTION III. 

853. How long before Herodotus did Moses live ? 

854. What acknowledgment did Porphyry make as to the antiquity of 

the writings of Moses ? 
;55. What pagan traditions confirm the truth of the Pentateuch ? 

856. What is said of Zoroaster ? 

857. What Jewish historian successfully vindicates the authority of the 

Jewish scriptures ? 

SECTION IV. 

858. What are the principal facts recorded in the book of Genesis ? 

859. What remarkable prophecy of Isaiah is there concernimg Cyrus ? 

860. And what one concerning Babylon ? 

861. What was the length of time from the giving of the law to Moses to 

the reformation in worship and government of the Jews by Nehe - 
miah ? 

862. What hereditary distinction of rank existed among the Jews ? 

863. What is said of Moses, El:sha, and Gideon ? 

864. What internal undoubted characteristic of truth is there in the scrip- 

tures ? 

SECTION V. 

865. When was the creation of the world accomplished ? 

366. What was one of the most remarkable circumstance! of the antedi- 
luvians ? 
667. How long did some of the oldest of them live ? 

868. Why did the Almighty destroy the world by a deluge of water t 

869. Who were saved from it and by what means ? 

870. Who were some of the first inventers of the useful art* ? 

SECTION VI. 

871. What it taid of the three sons of Noah ? 



QUESTIONS. n 

*72. What is the most important event between the deluge and the Cflii 
of Abraham ? 

873. Of what city was Babel the beginning ? 

SECTION VII. 

874. From whom do the Jews derive theii origin ? 

875. What relationship was there between Jacob and Abraham ? 

876. How came Joseph, the son of Jacob, to be in Egypt? 

877. By what means was he made governor of Egypt ? 

878. How came his father and brethren to remove thither ? 

879. How long did the Israelites remain in Egypt ? 

880. What were some of the circumstances connected with their leaving 

it? 

881. How long after leaving Egypt did Moses die ? 

SECTION VIII. 

882. What caused a league to be formed between the Syrian chiefs? 

883. Who was the successor of Moses in the government of Israel ? 

884. How were the Israelites governed after the death of Joshua? 

885. Who were the two last Judges of Israel ? 

886. What change took place in the government on the death of Samuel/ 

SECTION IX. 

887. What was the original government of Israel called ? 

888. What moral and political change took place on the death of Jo*hua> 

in the condition of Israel ? 

889. Why was the regal government introduced ? 

SECTION X. 

890. How long did Saul reign over Israel? 

891. By what means was David raised to the throne as his successor? 

892. What prosperous events characterized the reign of David? 

893. What adverse ones characterized it ? 

894. How long did David reign, and who succeeded him ? 

895. What is the most remarkable event in the reign of Solomon ? 

896. What books are ascribed to him ? 

897. Under what circumstances was the kingdom divided ? 

898. By what names were the two kingdoms subsequently to this division 

called ? 

899. What became of the ten tribes who constituted the kingdom of Is* 

rael? 

900. Whence sprang the Samaritans ? 

901. When and in what manner ended the kingdom of Judah? 

SECTION XI. 

902. How long were the Jews held captive in Babylon? 

903. By whom were they released ? 

904. From what time and circumstance were the Israelites called Jews? 

905. What caused Alexander the great to march to Jerusalem with hos- 

tile intentions ? 

906. By what means was he appeased ? 

907. What favours did he then bestow on them ? 

908. What advantage did Ptolemy take of the regard which the Jews paid 

to the Sabbath ? 

909. In what manner did the five brothers named Maccabeus become dis- 

tinguished ? 
9\0, Who was their father ? 



oa QUESTIONS. 

911. When and by whom were the Jews subjected to the Romans ? 

912. Who was then placed on the throne of David under the protection 

of the Romans ? 

913. By what memorable event was the reign of Herod distinguished ? 
•14. By whom and when was the Jewish nation extinguished ? 

915. How many Jews are supposed to have perished in their last wai 

with the Romans ? 

SECTION XII. 

916. What is the period of scriptural history ? 

917. Where is it supposed that the Jews obtained their knowledge of the 

arts and sciences ? 

918. What was the state of commerce among the Jews ? 

919. With what inference does Tytler conclude his work on history? 



CONTINUATION, OR PART THIRD 

SECTION i. 

920. What was the age of Lewis XV. when the crown of France descend 

ed to him ? 

921. When and what heirs to the crown »f France, died within a few 

months ? 

922. What made it necessary for France «» the death of Lewis XIV. to 

preserve peace with foreign states? 

923. Who was regent of France during the minority of Lewis XV. ? 

924. What distinguished minister was at the court of Spain, in this 

period ? 
926. What was the character of the duk* of Orleans, the regent of 
France ? 

926. By what means were the duchies of Loriiin and Bar made to revert 

to France ? 

SECTION II. 

927. Who succeeded queen Anne on the throne of Britain ? 

928. What acts of parliament had passed connected with the accession 

of George I. concerning religion ? 

929. When did he enter his new dominions ? 

930. How did the rebellion of 1715 in Scotland, terminate? 

931. By what name were the adherents to the Pretender called ? 

932. By what name was the party called to which George I. committed 

the government of the realm ? 

933. Who was king of Sweden at this time ? 

934. For what purpose and by whom was he nearly instigated to invadt 

Britain ? 

935. What ruined the prospects of Alberoni ? 

936. In what way did he attempt obtaining revenge ? 

937. Why did he not succeed ? 

938. At what age and when did George I. die ? 

SECTION HI. 

939. When did Charles VI. become emperor of Austria and Germany r 

940. Who was the Austrian commander in the first war of Charles Vft 

with the Tiuks? 



QUESTIONS U 

941. What arrangement did he make for the descent of the Austrian 

crown? 

942. What was this arrangement or his act in making it called ? 

943. When did Charles VI. die, and who succeeded him ? 

944. Was she permitted to enjoy unmolested the dominions descended to 

her? 

945. What circumstances were calculated to raise up competitors for dif- 

ferent parts of her estates ? 

946. Who was the most forward and active of the queen's opponents ? 

947. What prevented the competitors of the queen from succeeding in 

obtaining their claims ? 

948. Which one of them succeeded in obtaining the imperial crown ii 

1741? 

949. How long after this did he live ? 

950. On his death who obtained the imperial crown ? 

951. When did the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle take place? 

SECTION IV. 

952. At what time and age did George II. come to the throne of Eng- 

land? 

953. Who was his queen ? 

954. Who was prime minister of England at this time ? 

955. What caused him to resign ? 

956. Upon what two occasions had his views been thwarted ? 

957. When did he die ? 

958. What interesting event occurred in Scotland the same year ? 

959. What was the object of the insurrection in Scotland ? 

960. In what battle were the hopes of the Stuart family for ever blasted ? 

961. What became of the heir of this family after that battle ? 

962. What is considered the most melancholy circumstance attending 

the Scottish rebellion ? 

963. What singular act of parliament was passed in the year 1751 ? 

964. When and at what age did George II. die ? 

SECTION V. 

965. By what treaty was the house of Hanover effectually established 

on the British throne ? 

966. How was the British naval force left by this treaty compared with 

the naval forces of other European nations ? 

967. What did Austria lose by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ? 

968. What did Prussia gain by it ? 

969. How did it effect Holland ? 

970. By what means was Russia introduced into the southern states at 

Europe ? 

SECTION VI 

971. What became a subject of jealousy and future warfare, after the 

peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, between France and England ? 

972. In what respect did the peace of Europe, in 1748, extend to Asia 

and America ? 

973. What French governor in the East Indies attempted tx> bring the 

Mogul empire under the dominion of France ? 

974. In what way did the French in America gain an advantage over the 

English ? 

975. When did the French war in America commence ? 

976. What number of French merchant vessels was captured and car- 

ried intc the English ports the first year of the war ? 
3* 



90 QUESTIONS. 

977. When the war was extended to Europe, what powen 

themselves against each other ? 

978. Who was king of Prussia at this time ? 

979. What is his character ? 

880. What has this war been termed ? 

981. How many men have been supposed to have perished annually in 

the campaigns of it ? 

982. What advantage did the English gain in America ? 

983. What new ally did France obtain in the year of 1761 ? 

984. What induced him to join the league against England ? 

985. What advantages did England gain by this war ? 

986. What change in the ministry of England contributed to the peace 1 

SECTION VII. 

987. When did George HI. succeed to the throne of Britain? 

988. What was one of his first acts which showed him to be the friend 

of liberty ? 

989. What gave rise to distressing tumults in the year 1762 ? 

990. How did the measures of lord Bute differ from those of Mr. Pitt? 

991. What contributed to make the first years of George III. unquiet? 

992. What besides public addresses and remonstrances contributed to the 

popular fervour and agitation of public feeling at this period? 

993. What constitutional question came under discussion at this time ? 

994. For what is the year 1764 remarkable ? 

SECTION VIII. 

995. What was the pretence for taxing the American colonies ? 

996. What was the first instance of imposing direct taxes without their 

consent ? 

997. When was this imposed ? 

998. When was it formally repealed ? 

999. What reason is there for supposing that the Americans did not con- 

template independence when they first made opposition to the 
British government ? 

1000. How long was it after the passing of the stamp act before the com 

mencement of hostilities ? 

1001. When and where was American independence declared? 

1002. Who were sent to France, and when, to solicit aid for the Ameri 

cans ? 

1003. What other powers besides that of France, united against England i 

1004. When did Great Britain ratify the treaty which admitted the Amer 

ican independence ? 

SECTION IX. 

1005. Who laid the foundation for the French revolution ? 

1006. Why were the Jesuits banished from Portugal in the year 1750 ? 

1007. What charge was attempted to be fixed on them at Paris, subse- 

quent to this ? 

1008. When was the order of Jesuits abolished in France ? 

1009. From what other countries were they expelled, and when? 

1010. Whom did the dauphin of France, afterwards Lewis XIV. marry? 
iOll. When did he come to the throne ? 

1012. When was an alliance formed between the court of Versailles and 

America ? 

1013. Who were the most eminent friends of liberty in the British parlia 

ment ? 
1^14. What, at this time, produced an extraordinary effect on the Pan 
sians, agains* the extravagance of the French court? 



QUESTIONS. 31 

1015. What particular difficulties had the king to encounter ? 
1016 What, in the year 1783, tended to hasten the French revolution 
and bring matters to a crisis ? 

1017. Who first called for the states-general ? 

1018. Who was in the French ministry when the states-general was call- 

ed ? 

SECTION X. 

1019. What inconsistency was there in the conduct of Maria Theresa con- 

cerning Poland ? 

1020. What led to a war between Austria and Prussia, in the year 1778 ? 

1021. What part did Austria take in regard to the war for American in- 

dependence ? 

1022. When and at what age did Maria Theresa die ? 

SECTION XL 

1023. How long before the death of his mother, Maria Theresa, did J«» 

seph II. come to the imperial throne of Austria ? ■ 

1024. In what manner did he labour to acquire the information needful to 

his subjects ? 

1025. What was the population of his dominions ? 

1026. What important edict was passed by him, October 31, 1781 ? 

1027. When did the Netherlands declare themselves independent of Aus- 

tria ? 

1028. When did Joseph II. die, and by whom was he succeeded ? 

1029. How long did Leopold reign ? 

1030. Who succeeded him and when ? 

1031. What evil did he experience Irom taking part against the French 

revolutionists ? 

1032. By whom were the Austrians assisted against the French in the 

war of 17^9 ? 

SECTION XII. 

1033. When was the states-general assembled ? 

1034. What was the French state prison called ? 

1035. What became of it ? 

1036. How many families were there at this time in France of the ancient 

hereditary nobility ? 

1037. In what way did the king attempt to rescue himself from the re- 

straints imposed on him ? 

1038. When was the national assembly dissolved ? 

1039. What prevented Sweden and Russia from engaging in hostilities 

against the French ? 

1040. What furnished the demagogues with opportunity for charging thst 

king with making war upon his people ? 

1041. What has this period of the French history been called ? 

1042. Who was at the head of affairs in France ? 

1043. How many, suspected of being aristocrats, were assassinated on the 

second of September ? 

1044. When was the king brought to trial ? 

1045. When was he executed ? 

1046. Into how many factions were the revolutionists divided, tad 

were they called ? 
1047y Which one triumphed ? 
1.04ft What became of the queen of France ? 



3* QUESTIONS. 



SECTION XIII. 

1049. What change took place in the ministry of Great Britain after tin 

peace with America ? 

1050. Who succeeded Mr. Fox in the British ministry ? 
t051. What is the Sinking Fund of Great Britain ? 

1052. What important prosecution was undertaken at this time by the 

British parliament ? 

1053. How long did it last, and what was its result ? 

1054. When was the attention of the house of commons first called to the 

slave trade ? 

1055. When was it abolished ? 

1056. What event compelled the British parliament to meet on the 20th 

of November, 1788? 

1057. What occurrence arose to threaten war between England and 

Spain, in the year 1790 ? 

1058. What led to the declaration of war against the king of Great 

Britain, by France, in the year 1793 ? 

1059. With what success was the war prosecuted ? 

1060. What Important occurrence took place in Ireland, 1798? 

1061. What important event to Ireland succeeded the suppression of the 

rebellion ? 

1062. What took place in India during the last year of the eighteenth 

century ? 

1063. What led to the peace of Amiens, between France and England, 

October 1st, 1801 ? 

SECTION XIV. 

1064. What was the situation of France towards the close of the year 

1793 ? 

1065. What took place on the 17th of November, 1793? 

1066. What alteration was there made in the calendar? 

1067. When and where did Napoleon Bonaparte first distinguish himself? 

1068. What became of Robespierre ? 

1069. What was the government of France, established and proclaimed 

in 1795 ? 

1070. What were the affairs of France externally at this time ? 

1071. Who were some of her most distinguished generals ? 

1072. What territories were added to the French republic? 

1073. What became of Lewis XVII.? 

SECTION XV. 

1074. When did Bonaparte receive the chief coiumand of the French 

army in Italy? 

1075. What was his age at that time ? 

10.6. On the reduction of Mantua, what did he state to his soldiers had 
been their success ? 

1077. Why were the Venetians unwilling to take part either with the 

Austrians or French ? 

1078. Of what dishonourable conduct was Bonaparte guilty, in relation 

to the Venetians ? 

1079. What took place on the 4th and 5th of September, 1797 ? 

1080. Upon what expedition did Bonaparte enter, in the year 1798? 

1081. What success did he have in this expedition ? 

!082. What lessened his triumph and gave a new turn to the war? 
1083. What change took place in the French government on Bonaparte U 
return from Egypt ? 



QUESTIONS. 33 

.084. When, by whom and with what result was the battle of Mafenro 
fought ? ^ 

1085. When and between whom was the treaty of Luneville signed ? 

1086. When and between whom was the treaty of Amiens signed? 

1087. What was the French power, and what were her possessions at this 

time ? 

SECTION XVI. 

1088. What regulation did Bonaparte make for religion in France ? 
1089 What took place on the 2d of August, 1802 ? 

1090. What led to a renewal of hostilities between France and England. 

1803 ? * 

1091. On the renewal of hostilities, what security did Bonaparte take for 

the future good conduct of England? 

1092. What military enterprise did he project ? 

1093. What took place on the 18th of May, and the 2d of December, 

1804 ? 

1094. Why did general Moreau come to America ? 

1095. What induced Russia, Prussia, and Austria, to unite in hostilities 

against Napoleon ? 

1096. What took place on the 21st of October, 1805 ? 

1097. After what battle did the emperor of Austria solicit peace ? 

1098. What appeared to lead to the exaltation of Joseph Bonaparte to 

the throne of Naples ? 

1099. What change took place in the government of Holland, in 1806 ? 

1100. What change took place, in the same year, in the political condition 

of Germany ? 

1101. How came Bonaparte to be in Berlin, in November, of this year? 

1102. What extraordinary decree did he dictate, while there? 

1103. What concessions did the emperor of Russia make to the French 

emperor in the treaty of Tilsit ? 

SECTION XVII. 

1104. When did Charles IV. come to the throne of France ? 

1105. What caused the Spaniards, in 1793, to invade France ? 

1 106. What was the consequence of this invasion to Spain ? 

1107. By what means did St. Domingo fall into the hands of the French ? 

1108. What led to the war between England and Spain in 1805 ? 

1 109. Why did the royal family of Portugal remove to America, and when ? 

1110. On what account was Ferdinand arrested and imprisoned by the 

Spanish authorities ? 

1111. By what means was the Spanish throne declared vacant and 

Joseph Bonaparte proclaimed king of Spain ? 

1 112. What foreign power aided Spain and Portugal, against the French? 

1 113. In what battle were the French beaten and compelled to evacuate 

Portugal ? 

1 1 14. When and under whom did the British army enter Spain ? 

1115. What became of Sir John Moore ? 

1116. When did Sir Arthur Welle sley, with fresh troops from England* 

enter Spain ? 

1117. For what service was he raised to a peerage ? 

1118. What battle caused the gates of Madrid to be thrown open to the 

Spanish patriots in 1812 ? 

1119. When was the battle of Vittoria fought ? 

U20. What were the consequences of it to the French ? 

SECTION XVIII 

112 i. What was the partition treaty between France and Spain ? 



34 QUESTIONS. 

1122. What was the Milan decree? 

1 123. Who was created king of Naples when Joseph Bonaparte removed 

to Spain ? 

1124. How long did the war of Austria last, which commenced in 1809 ? 

1125. On what condition was Austria able to obtain peace ? 

1126. When did Bonaparte's second marriage take place? 

1127. When was the war renewed with Russia ? 

1128. With how large an army did Bonaparte invade Russia, in 1812 ? 

1129. What was the success of this expedition ? 

1130. With what force did he commence hostilities in 1813? 

1131. What battle completely discomfited the French emperc* ? 

1132. When did the allies pass the Rhine ? 

1133. When did they reach Paris ? 

1134. On what conditions was Bonaparte permitted to abdicate the French 

throne ? 

1135. When did the Bourbons return to Paris? 



SECTION XIX. 

1136. From what cause had Poland suffered much ? 

1137. What change did Charles XII. make in the state of Poland? 

1138. By the aid of whose power was the family of Augustus kept upon 

the throne of Poland during the first half of the eighteenth cen- 
tury ? 

1139. Who succeeded Augustus III. and when ? 

1140. What internal dispute greatly distracted Poland at this time? 

1141. With whom did the plan of dismembering Poland, originate ? 

1142. What reasons were given by the partitioning powers for the dis- 

memberment of Poland ? 

1 143. Did the Poles willingly acquiesce in the measure ? 

1 144. When was the division actually agreed upon and sanctioned by the 

Polish diet ? 

1145. When did a. second partition take place, and when a third? 

1 146. What became of Stanislaus, the last king of Poland ? 

1147. When and by whom was the kingdom declared re-established ? 

1148. What is the present political condition of it? 



SECTION XX. 

1 149. When were hostilities renewed by England against France ? 

1 150. What caused Spain also to be involved with Great Britain ? 

1151. How did the English violate the rules of justice in regard to Spain? 

What splendid victory did the English obtain over the French 
and Spanish, in 1805 ? 

1152. Of what act of injustice were the English judged guilty towards the 

Danes ? 

1153. What caused the royal family of France to take refuge in England,, 

in 1807? 

1 154. What were the English orders in council issued in January and No- 

vember, 1807? 

1155. When was the prince of Wales appointed regent of Great Britain? 

1156. Why was he appointed ? 

1157. What distinguished personage was assassinated in the month of May, 

1812? 

1158. What interesting event took place in England, in May, 1816 ? 

1159. By what melancholy event was it succeeded in November of the 

following year ? 
! 160. When did George HI. die ? 



QUESTIONS 85 

SECTION XXI. 

1161. How did the French army feei toward the emperor Napoleon, after 

he was exiled ? 

1162. When did Bonaparte land in France, on his return from Elba? 

1163. When did he enter Paris? 

il64. When was the battle of Waterloo fought, which for ever terminat- 
ed his prospects ? 

1165. When did he arrive at St. Helena, to which he was banished ? 

1166. What resolution was adopted by the allied military commanders in 

relation to the works of art, which the French had collected in 
former victories ? 

1167. What precaution did the allies adopt to prevent future revolutions 

in that country ? 

SECTION XXII. 

1168. Who were the three immediate successors of Peter I. upon the 

throne of Russia ? 

1169. How long after the death of her father did the princess Elizabeth 

come to the throne ? 

1170. How long did she reign, and who succeeded her ? 

1171. What became of Peter III. ? 

1172. What was the character of Catharine II. his widow, who succeed 

ed? 

1173. When did Alexander, the present emperor of Russia, come to thf 

throne ? 

1174. What became of his predecessor ? 

1175. How long has Prussia existed as a kingdom? 
1176> How many kings have reigned over it? 

' 177. Which of them did most toward raising the kingdom to the first 
degree of power and renown ? 

1 178. What two factions were there in Sweden in the reign of Frederick ? 

1179. How long did Gustavus III. reign ? 

1180. How did he come by his death ? 

181. Why did Gustavus IV. abdicate the throne ? 

1 182. Who is the present king of Sweden ? 

1183. When did he come to the throne ? 

184. How many kings have reigned in Denmark since the close of the 
seventeenth century ? 

1185. In what war was Christian VII. connected with George III. of Eng 
land? 

1186. Why did his queen, Caroline Matilda, retire to, and end her daya 
in Germany ? 

1187. Who is the present king of Denmark? 

SECTION XXIII. 

1 188. In what disputes was Switzerland involved during the first part ol 
the 18th century ? 

1189. Which of the popes of Rome suppressed the order of Jesuits? 

1190. Who was rasied to the papal chair in 1775 ? 

1191. At what age, when, and where did he die ? 

1192. How came he at Valence ? 

1193. When was his successor chosen, and by what name is he called? 

1 194. When did he aid in establishing the catholic religion in France ? 

1 195. What injury did he afterwards receive from France ? 

SECTION XXIV. 

1 196. Who was the reigning prince of India in the beginning of the lHtk 
century ? 



36 QUESTIONS. 

1197. Tc what age did he live? 

1198. In what manner did he come to the throne? 

1199. What singular fact is mentioned as evidence of the contentions 

common for the throne, with that semi-barbarous people ? 

1200. What chartered privilege has the English East India Company 

with this people ? 

1201. When did tht Company receive this privilege i 

1202. What description of this people is called Sepoys ? 

1203. Who is regarded as the founder of the British empire in India ? 

1204. When did the British parliament make provision to prevent abuse* 

of power in India ? 

1205. What distinguished individuals were instrumental in the first re- 

forms under the new system ." 

1206. What is the reason why this system was not scrupulously adhered 

to? 

1207. What was the object of Tippoo in regard to the English ? 

1208. For what object was the East India College established ? 
209. What is the population of British India ? 



STATE OF ARTS, SCIENCES, RELIGION, LAWS, GOVERN- 
MENT, &c. 

1210. What countries have been particularly distinguished in literature, 

arts, and science, in the 18th century ? 

1211. Which of the sciences in particular have been much cultivated and 

advanced in that time ? 

1212. In what particulars has chemistry undergone important changes in 

the latter part of the 18th century ? 

1213. Who claim to be the authors of the new theory of chemistry? 

1214. What is now ascertained to be the nature of atmospheric air? 

1215. By whom was the discovery of vital air, or oxygen gas, made ? 

1216. To what branch of chemistry is the discovery of the decomposition 

of water owing ? 

1217. Who discovered the constituent parts or principles of water? 

1218. What are they called ? 

1219. Who are some of the most distinguished chemists of the 18th cen- 

tury ? 

BOTANY. 

1220. Where and when was Linnaeus born ? 

12£1. What is the foundation of his systematic botany ? 

1222. With how many species of plants are botanists now said to be ac- 

quainted ? 

1223. What French botanist has done much for the benefit of the science ? 

1224. What is the difference between the system of Linnseus and that of 

Jussieu ? 

ELECTRICITY. 

1225. Who were some of the persons who first wrote learnedly on the 

subject of electricity ? 

1226. Who proved that the electric fluid and lightning are the iam« 

thing ? 

1227. To what practical purposes did he apply this ? 

1228. Of whom was Galvanism the discovery ? 

1229. What is Galvanism called ? 

1230. What English philosopher has become much celebrated forhil elec- 

tro-chemical researches ? 



QUESTIONS. t7 

MINERALOGY AND GEOLOGY 

1231. When did the modern scientific arrangements of minenu begin » 

occupy the attention of naturalists ? 

1232. Who has the credit of reducing the science into classes and orders « 

1233. From wbit did geology arise ? 

1234. What is geology ? 

GEOGRAPHY. 

1235. What two new quarters of the world have been presented to us, id 

the last century, according to the French geographers ? 

1236. What does Australasia include ? 

1237. What does Polynesia include ? 

1238. What took place in 1761, in evidence of the improvements in civili- 

zation ? 
T239. What eminent Prussian traveller has contributed to the perfection 
of geographical knowledge ? 

1240. From what period have the Russian sovereigns made laudable ef- 

forts to obtain correct geographical information ? 

1241. Has the science of astronomy undergone as great changes as the 

other sciences nam°d during the last century ? 

1242. How many planets have been discovered in that time ? 

1243. What fact is stattd from which we can form some conjecture of the 

number of fixed stars f 



1244. What French writer did much to unsettle the minds of his country- 

men on religion and politics ? 

1245. From whom has it been supposed that Voltaire imbibed his deisticai 

sentiments ? 

1246. Who were the principal deistical writers of England ? 

1247. What counteracted the tendency of their writings ? 

1248. What other eminent French philosopher visited England, beside* 

Voltaire, about the same time ? 

1249. To what did he principally confine his views ? 

1250. What were the political opinions of Rousseau ? 

1251. What was the origin of the French Encyclopedia ? 

1252. What courts of Europe were thrown open to the French philoso- 

phers ? 

1253. Is it to be supposed that the French philosophers, to whom the rev- 

olution has been imputed, contemplated the awful catastrophe 
of that event ? 

1254. Who was chiefly instrumental in introducing the improvements ol 

the 1 8th century into Russia ? 

DISCOVERIES AND INVENTIONS. 

1255. What are the principal discoveries and inventions of modern timer .' 

1256. What effect had the French revolution on the people of other co*w 

tries ? 

1257. What moral improvements have taken place in the condition v'rn- 

rkni3 civilized nations ? 

RELIGION. 

1258. In what countries does paganism prevail ? 

1259. What is the present condition of the Jews ? 
If 60. Where does Mahometanism prevail ? 

1261. What are the principal sects of the Christian religion ? 

1262. What sects have been most active as missionaries ? 

4 



88 QUESTIONS. 

1263. What change has the papal authority experienced in the time tn 
der consideration ? 

HISTORY, POLITE LITERATURE, FINE ARTS, &c. 

i264. What Germans have been distinguished in literature, and the fine 

arts ? 
, 265. Who in France ? 

1266. Who in Great Britain ? 

1267. Who in Italy ? 

TREATY OF VIENNA, 1815. 

1268. What addition of territory was given to Russia, and what new ti- 

tle to the Czar ? 

1269. What is to be the condition of Cracow ? 

1270. How did this treaty aflect Saxony? 

1271. How did it affect Prussia ? 

1272. What change took place in the Netherlands ? 



PART FOURTH. 



UNITED STATES. 

SECTION I. 

1273-. When and by whom was America discovered ? 

1274. Under whose patronage was it discovered ? 

1275. What part of it was discovered first ? 

1276. Why were the islands first discovered called the West Indies ? 

1277. Why was the continent called America? 

1278. How long time after Columbus sailed from the Canaries before he 

reached St. Salvador ? 

1279. To what governments did he apply for patronage without success ? 

SECTION II. 

1280. By whom and when was the continent of North America discover- 

ed? 

1281. On what account did Virginia derive its name? 

1282. Who made the first attempt to colonize this part of the continent ? 

1283. To whom did Sir Walter Raleigh afterward assign his interest in 

the country? 

1284. F'om what did James river take its name ? 

1285. On what account did capt. John Smith obtain his first release from 

the Indians? 

1286. Who effected his second release from them ? 

1287. On what account was the cultivation of the soil neglected by the 

first colonists ? 

1288. What is the 1m story of Focahontas subsequent to saving the life of 

capt. Smith ? 

1289. Who first brought, the African negroes into this part of the country? 

1290. What part did the Virginians take in relation to the revolution o/ 

the mother country under Cromwell ? 

1291. What was the population of Virginia, in 16J?6 ? 



QUESTIONS. W 

SECTION III. 
1292. What wu the origin of the Plymouth colony : 

gt Of now many did it consist :£££*££ tthe y ,„ 1630? 
gfr XtTd^rr^rSe^tTSeniand Jd Provence 

, 298 . ^fi£ foundation of Hartford, Springfield, and Weather.- 

,301 Wh'f numbT/of British subject, had settled in New-England, up 
,302 Wn°at Sauces of religious persecution took place in Ma.sachu.etta, 

,306 By fi wnomw« New-York first settled! 

1309. Whin and by whom was Georgia settled? 

SECTION IV. 

13 10. What settlements ^%^ ^ t^a the Englbh within 

1311. In what W* d J™^4 t hem from the continent? 

narrow limits, or to d " ve A nem * vL-inia assembly adopt to sup- 

' pointment to the English ? 
gg- itet&£S*g&Stt°* ia the capture .1 

^£S^rsS mF ^as^ i ^^'" ; 

at New- York? 
1322 When was the law repealed . 
i323 What bill was passed on the repeal of this ? 
It Whal disturbances took P^ J^^ZSd North. 

1325. What change took place on the e £™° n "jy^ 1770 ? 

1326. What disturbances took place in Boston, in Marcn 

1327. What took place in 1773? Briti$h ^^ 
1328 What resistance was made, 1773, in uosiou, 

,S: ^ ,, iy^%^ e, SSS^^ .pm th. SHK- 

the revolutionary war ? 
332. What led to the burning of Charlestown . 



40 QUESTIONS. 

1333. Who Leaded an expedition into Canada? 

1334. With what success was it made ? 

1335. By whom was general Gage superseded ? 

1336. When did the British evacuate Boston? 

1337. When was published the declaration of American Independence ? 

1338. What tended much to raise the desponding hopes of America hi 

the latter part of 1776 ? 

1339. What splendid advantages did the Americans gain in 1777 ? 

1340. When was a treaty of alliance formed between the French and 

Americans ? 

1341. Who took the command of the English army on the return of gen- 

eral Howe ? 

1342. Whv was general Lee suspended ? 

1343. What took place on the 15th July, 1779? 

1344. Where, and under what circumstances was count Folaski mortally 

wounded ? 

1345. What prevented West Point from falling into the possession of the 

English ? 

1346. What distinguished French military and naval commanders were 

sent to the aid of America ? 

347. What event is reckoned to have decided the contest between Eng- 

land and America ? 

348. How much money did England expend, and how many lives did 

she sacrifice in this war ? 

SECTION V. 

349. When did the convention meet to form a new constitution? 

1350. When and where did the first congress meet under the new consti- 

tution ? 

1351. What produced an insurrection in the western part of Pennsylva- 

nia? 

1352. What was the state of affairs between the United States and France, 

during the revolution in the latter ? 

1353. When did congress first meet in the city of Washington ? 

1354. What are the principal particulars of the war with Tripoli? 

1355. When and for how much was Louisiana purchased ? 

SECTION VI. 

1356. What were the particulars that led to the suspension of commodore 

Barron ? 

1357. What led to the declaration of war on the 18th of June, 1812, be- 

tween the United States and Great Britain ? 

1358. What were some of the principal disasters on land, which the 

Americans experienced during the war ? 

1359. What were their principal and most brilliant successes on land ? 

1360. What naval victories did they obtain ? 

1361. What naval losses did they experience ? 

1362. What American officers were killed during the war ? 

1363. What British officers were killed during it ? 

1364. When and where was a treaty of peace signed ? 

1365. Who were the commissioners ? 

1366. What states, since the admission of Louisiana in 1812, have been 

admitted intc the union ? 

1367. What accession of territory did the United States receive In ltl9 ? 

1368. What was the population of the United States in 1 8*0 ? 



arrsTioNa 



PART FIFTH. 



SECTION I. 



1360. 



, What circumstance agitated France in 1820? 

1370 When did Bonaparte die, and at what age 

1371 What is said of him ? . ■ _» . , 
1372* What war occurred in 1823, and what were its effects ? 
1373: When did Louis XVIII. die and who ■^eededhim ? 

1374 What circumstances occurred in Portugal in 1820, in 1821, and m 

1823 ? 
1375. Who succeeded George III. ? ,.•■-■■ , . lson ? 
1376 What remarkable events occurred in England m IbM . 
1377! For what was the Summer of 1821 remarkable, and what were its 

1378 WhTfrnPS decree was issued by the Emperor of Russi. t fa 1 1811 f 

1379. What chang. has since taken place m the constitution of that 

1380. WhaTwas the declaration of the Congress of Vienna in 1815, with 

regard to the slave trade ? . - M „ - 

1381 How far were their purposes in this respect carried into effect ? 
1382*. What circumstances occurred with regard to the Jesuits m 1816 and 

i«W* When did Pone Pius VII. die, and who succeeded him ? 

1384 Wha"were the principal events in the life of the present pope, pre- 

vious to his elevation to the papal throne ? 

1385 What occurred in Naples and Sicily in 1820 and lb^l. 

1386. When did the Greeks revolt against the lurks' 

1387. What is said of this war ? 

SECTION II. 

1388. From what must we estimate the degree of civilization to which th« 

ancient Mexicans had attained ? 

1389. What is said of the political system ? 
1390*. What of the ecclesiastical ? 

1391 What crimes were made capital ? . j-.^*«j ? 

1392 To what was tLe attention of government principally directed? 
I303 What is said of the other governments in the country r 

1394' What of the arts and sciences known to them ? 

1395: Do they appear to have been less civilized than European nations of 

1396. What SccurredTwhen the Spaniards first landed, and how w«r« ttoj 

affected by it ? . 

1397 What occurred in their route to Tenochtitlan or Mexico ? 

1398. When did they arrive at the capital ? 

1399. What force had Cortez at this time ? 
1400: How were they received? _ 

1401 What was the first act of aggression ? . 

1402* What most excited the indignation of the Mexicans 
1403 On what account did Cortez leave the city ? 

1404. In what state did he find things on Ata return f 

1405. How was Montezuma killed ? 
1406 Who was his successor ? 

4* 



42 QUESTIONS 

1407. Where did the first battle occur, and what was its result ? 

1408. What measures did Cortez adopt to strengthen his force? 

1409. When did he return to the neighbourhood of Tenochtitlan, and what 

measures did he pursue to conquer the city? 

1410. What number of allies did he receive ? 
'1411. When was the city conquered? 

1412. How did Cortez dispose of his captives ? 

1413. In whose reign did the conquest occur ? 

1414. What is said of the history of New Spain from this period till the 

revolution ? 

1415. Whoso property were these colonies ? 

1416. How were they divided ? 

1417. What was the authority of the viceroy ? 

1418. What aids had the viceroys in the administration of government ? 

1419. On whom did the supreme authority devolve when a viceroy died? 

1420. When was the Council of the Indies established, and what were its 

functions ? 

1421. What other tribunal was there ? 

1422. What occurred in 1808 ? 

1423. How did this affect the European part of the population, and what 

did they do ? 

1424. Who was the next viceroy ? 

1425. What conspiracy was formed, and how did it terminate <l - 

1426. What other revolts arc mentioned ? 

1427. When did general Mina arrive ? 

1428. When was he defeated ? 

1429. When, and from what cause, did the last revolt from the authority of 

Spain occur ? 

1430. Who now united their influence in favour of a revolution ? 

1431. Who was selected to execute their plans ? 

1432. What measures did he adopt to raise himself to the supreme au- 

thority ? 

1433. Who were his friends, and who his opponents ? 

1434. When was he declared emperor ? 

1435. How were the cler-gy affected i 

1436. Who now arose to produce a new revolution, and what were kit 

measures ? 

1437. By whom was Santana assisted ? 

1438. When was this revolution completed ? 

1439. What became of Iturbide ? 

1440. What form of government was established ? 

1441. When was their constitution adopted? 

1442. What is its principal defect? 

1443. What other federal government was formed at the tame period f 

1444. What title does it assume? 

1445. What religion is established ? 

SECTION III. 

1446. When were the Bahamas discovered ? 

1447. When was the first settlement made ? 

1448. By whom were they soon after possessed 

1449. Who was their leader ? 

1450. Who have since possessed the Bahamas ? 

1451. What is said of the pirates? 

1452. What is said of the Aborigines ? 

1453. What of the Arrowauks ? 

1154 How were the Great Antilles divided? 

1455. What was the authority of the caciquee? 

1456. How populous wen; these islands ? 



QUESTIONS. 

1457 What became of the inhabitants ? 

1458. What fact is worthy of record in favour of the Spaniard! j 

1459. Who were the Buc earners ? 

1460. Whence their name ? 

1461. Give the rest of their history ? 

SECTION IV 

1462 When was this country discovered and settled i 

1463. Character of its history till 1778 ? 

1464. What events followed ? 

1465. When was the country invaded ; by whom ; and with what i 

1466. Where did the revolution commence, and what was its cause ? 

1467. What is the date of its declaration of Independence ? 

1468. By whom was it afterwards invaded ? 

1469. What is its present state ? 

1470. What is the early history of Brazil ? 

1471. When did the royal family arrive, and how long remain i 

1472. How was the government then left ? 

1473. What circumstances followed ? 

1474. Who is the Emperor of Brazil ? 

1475. What is said of the history of Guiana ? 

1476. What is the principal tribe of Indians in Guiana ? 

1477. Of what was New-Granada originally a part ? 

1478. What changes have taken place in the audiences and viceroy»Uievi 

1479. What occurred in 1811 ? 

1480. History of Venezuela from 1498 to 1806 ? 

1481. What is said of Miranda's expedition ? 

1482. What oocurred in 1811 ? 

1483. When were Venezuela andNew-Gianada united? 

1484. What fundamental laws of the Republic are mentioned ? 

1485. What is said of the constitution ? 

1486. Why is the early history of Peru uncertain ? 

1487. Former state of the Peruvian tribes ' 

1488. Who appeared among them, and with what pretension* ? 

1489. What city was founded ? 

1490. What did these extraordinary persons teach ? 

1491. How extensive were their dominions ? 

1492. What were they called ? 

1493. How was the succession of Incas preserved pure ? 

1494. What is said of their religion and civil policy ? 

1495. How many Incas were there ? 

J 496. How far did they advance in civilization ? 

1497. W 7 hen did the Spaniards first visit Peru? 

1498. What is the history of Huana Capac ■' 

1499. What is the history of Huascar and * .ahualpa ? 

1500. W T hat is said of the Spanish invader-- 

1501. What were their measures ? 

1502. What is the subsequent history of Peru ? 

1503. What is its present condition ? 

1504. What possessions on the American continent do the Spaniards •» 

hold ? 

1505. What is the history of Chili before the invasion ? 

1506. Describe the first expedition and its result ? 

1507. Describe the second expedition ? 

1508. What occurred on the return of Almagro to Pern? 

1509. Who was entrusted with the third expedition ? 

1510. What is said of the subsequent contests ? 

1511. Give an account of the Araucanian* ? 

1512. What occurred in 1810 ? 



44 QUESTIONS 

1518. What in 1814 and in 1817 ? 

1514. How was the patriot army re-organized ? 

1515. What is said of their passage over the Andes ? 

1516. What were the events of 1818 ? 

1517. What government is established * . ■' 

1518. Why will their progress in real knowledge !>• ■•* r 
1619. What is said of Don Jose San Martin r 

1530. What is said of Bolivar ? 



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